


Katabasis

by velteris



Category: Love Live! School Idol Project
Genre: F/F, Greek Mythology AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-19
Updated: 2017-08-23
Packaged: 2018-10-07 18:08:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 36,417
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10366425
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/velteris/pseuds/velteris
Summary: The Hades and Persephone myth: hopefully with more consent, definitely with more sapphic ladies. In which Nozomi falls, loves, and leaves.





	1. Act I

**Author's Note:**

> Moving this over to ao3 since it's one of my biggest fics, and also I need that PDF conversion :') Hello! If you don't already know me on tumblr, I'm @velteris there too, and I'm much more active than I am on ao3 (porting fics is such a pain and I'm lazy, I'm sorry), so come say hi to me there for better chances of a response
> 
> I've edited both Acts I and II in an effort to kick myself into finishing Act III, but not heavily - just changing a few words for better foreshadowing and pest-controlling those wrong tenses that always slip in somehow. All the same, if you're a repeat reader and wanna boost my ego a bit, I'd love to read any and all comments!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Nozomi falls down a hole, has an architectural revelation, and grows a flower.

“The gates of hell are open night and day; / smooth the descent and easy is the way…” - Virgil, _The Aeneid_

* * *

 Nozomi opened her eyes.

Clumps of dirt fell from her hair as she pulled herself up into a sitting position; she winced, probing at her skull, then at her lower back and arms as more sore spots made themselves evident. In the dim light, she could see golden-purple bruises blooming across her shins.

That was odd. Injuries rarely lasted long, not even the time Nozomi had climbed a cliff in her youth - ignoring Hanayo’s anxious warnings - slipped on a loose rock, and fallen ten meters. The broken bone had healed within the hour. Something as simple as bruises shouldn’t have taken so long to heal.

How far had she fallen?

Brushing more dirt off her head, Nozomi squinted upwards. Far, far above, between rocky protrusions and gnarled roots, the faint glimmer of darkening blue sky could be seen. Definitely more than ten meters. Closer to a hundred, maybe. Dimly, she remembered trying to break her fall on some of those handholds, but…

The bump on her head flared with a vicious throb and Nozomi winced. She didn’t even remember hitting the ground. Maybe that was why she still had bruises; she had no idea how long she’d been unconscious. Long enough for the day to begin turning into night, at least.

“Well, that’s alright,” Nozomi whispered to herself. Roots meant plants. And plants meant power. It was easy enough for Persephone, nature goddess, to call the roots down to herself to climb back out of the hole, even if it was a long way back to the top.

Concentrating, she thrust out a hand at the nearest root, envisioning it curling into her hand.

Nothing happened.

Her heart picked up a beat. Again, Nozomi gestured at the root, and when it kept stubbornly still, she reached for another one further above her head. No response. Worry bubbled in her chest; she stood rapidly, ignoring the complaints from her small injuries, and wrapped her fingers around the nearest dirt-grainy root. “Grow,” she said as firmly as she could.

The root remained deaf to her commands. Nozomi slowly let go, then took a step back in blanked-out shock, before sitting down heavily and closing her eyes.

For the first time in as long as she could remember, when she reached deep inside, Nozomi couldn’t feel her divine power. Weak though she’d always been, there had never been a time she couldn’t bend such simple plants to her will. Helplessness was a new and entirely unwelcome sensation.

There was a creaking noise, and the light grew dimmer. Nozomi’s eyes shot open and she bolted upright again, staring upwards. The patch of blue sky was getting narrower and narrower. She stretched one hand upwards and cried, “Wait!”

The lips of the hole sealed shut, and Nozomi was plunged into pure darkness.

Panic set in. Nozomi made it three handholds up one rocky wall before she ran out of more, and she dropped heavily back to the ground, almost in tears. All she’d wanted to do was go for a small adventure, take a walk through some of the land’s farther reaches - not be trapped in the earth’s bowels. Breathing deeply to calm her thumping heart, Nozomi dusted her palms off on her white tunic, then dropped her face into her hands for a long moment, trying to imagine it was only dark because of her closed eyes.

“Alright, Nozomi,” she whispered to herself. “Alright, Persephone. What are you going to do?”

Goddesses didn’t need food, water or sleep. Her survival and escape were inevitable, as soon as she figured out an exit. If nothing else, Demeter would come looking for her. Raising her head, Nozomi placed one hand on the rocky wall and started walking slowly along it, mapping her prison and counting her steps silently in her head.

She didn’t walk very far. Twelve steps around the faintly curved wall later, her fingers came upon a sharp angle. The bumpy, rugged wall of earth rounded a corner, and became strangely smooth, almost hand-crafted.

Keeping one hand on the corner, Nozomi reached the other as far down the turn as she could. It stayed smooth as far as she felt. She took one step further along the smooth wall, and her fingers hit… a stick?

Pale blue flames burst into being, and instinctively, Nozomi jumped back from the fire, dropping the torch in her hands. It hit the ground and rolled a little before coming to a stop, the flames at its tip burning on without so much as a flicker. One by one, more torches lit up with soft hisses, revealing a long passageway leading away into gloom.

Nozomi carefully picked up the blue torch with two fingers. It gave off no heat. The tell-tale feel of magic ran through her bones - a metallic-sweet taste on the back of her tongue, the scent of narcissi, a whisper of cold running down her spine. “Ah,” she mumbled, grasping the torch more fully. The magic was powerful, its owner’s mere aftertaste nearly as strong as the current of power Nozomi felt when wielding her own magic.

This had been made by a god. A very strong god.

Hope and relief mingled as Nozomi raised the blue torch before her and started walking down the passageway. A faint breeze seemed to flow into the tunnel, setting strands of her hair floating. Where there was a god, there would be salvation. Surely they would listen to her plea for help and deliver her back to the surface.

Ten minutes later, Nozomi wasn’t as sure as she had been about her impending rescue. The passageway continued with no sign of ending, torch after torch lighting the way before her. The only change was that the ground had begun to slope downwards under her bare feet.

Twenty minutes later, the only reason she hadn’t turned around was because she knew that there was nothing but the small hole behind her to go back to. The pale blue fire cast strange shadows across the ground; several times Nozomi shied away from some movement, only to realise it was just the play of light.

Thirty minutes later, Nozomi was seriously considering trying her luck at climbing again. She drew the folds of her tunic around her as she walked. The deeper she went, the further the temperature had dropped. Again and again she concentrated, but felt barely a flicker of her divine power.

She’d lost count of the seconds passing and her footsteps by the time she realised she could hear water.

Speeding up to a half jog, Nozomi strained her ears. There it was - the muted gurgling of flowing water, lapping against rocky shores, a slow-moving version of the brooks near the home she shared with Hanayo. Water meant life; life meant, possibly, finding a sentient being who could direct her to the local god, whoever they were.

And suddenly, the passageway came to an abrupt end, and Nozomi stood open-mouthed in the entrance to an impossibly vast cavern.

Rough-hewn steps curved away from her, lined with more blue torches, leading down to an impossibly black river, so black that Nozomi could barely make out the ripples in the water as it flowed by. A thick bank of mist lay across the river’s other side. She craned her head back. The cavern’s ceiling receded into darkness; the walls on either side of Nozomi were similarly swallowed by the gloom. Black merged into black, as if she stood in an infinitely huge space.

Hesitantly, Nozomi stepped down the stairs, torch still clenched in her fist, and held the flame close to the water to try and see the bottom. No luck - the river’s current flowed smooth but fast, impenetrably black. It was cold, colder than it had been in the passageway; a chill seemed to emanate from the waters, and Nozomi’s former plan to try to swim across dissipated as her very soul seemed to rebel against the thought of touching the water. She drew back and peered into the mist instead, scanning for some sort of crossing.

There was no crossing. There was, however, something moving towards her out of the wispy mist.

Backtracking up the stairs, Nozomi held the torch in front of her, meagre weapon though it was. The something resolved itself into the shape of a huge, black barge.

Perhaps it had come from the other side of the river; perhaps it had simply coalesced from the mist sitting heavily over the waters. At the helm stood… it wasn't a person, that much Nozomi could tell.

With an ear-piercing shriek, the barge ground to a halt against the stone stairs disappearing into the water. The figure at the helm released its pole and stretched a hand out to Nozomi. In the voice of a young boy, it said, “Welcome. Coin for passage.” Somewhere on the figure’s face, sharp brown eyes stared out from under black-blonde-red hair, its features shifting with every blink.

Nozomi tightened her shivering grip on the torch, which burned steadily. “Hello,” she said, praying it wouldn’t notice the quiver in her voice. “I’m afraid I don’t have a coin. Would you mind taking me across anyway? I need to see the god here.”

Slowly, ponderously, the figure shook its head. “No coin, no passage,” it said, this time in the creaking vowels of an old man. “The others are waiting.”

Others.

Nozomi turned.

A scream climbed the rungs of her throat, and she just barely kept it clenched behind her teeth. Behind her, filling the passageway and the stairs, were shadows - humanoid shadows, faces blank, swaying where they stood silently. Incorporeal torsos flickered with the pale blue light, melding with each other and separating with each movement. The closest, a girl in her teenage years, stood barely a handspan away from Nozomi. Their eyes met. In the girl’s gaze was nothing but the emptiness of death.

The breeze, the shadows in the tunnel, the cold, the dead following Nozomi down into -

“Who are you? And where am I?”

The figure’s face blurred, and changed to a young man’s eager smile. In a singer’s rich croon, it said, “I am Charon. I am the ferryman of the Underworld. This is the Underworld.”

Nozomi blinked. She said blankly, “Oh. I see. Thank you for your time.”

She took a step to the side, fully prepared to walk away from the dead and the ferryman of the dead and maybe spend some time quietly hyperventilating along the shore of the river, because she was _trapped in the land of the dead with no way of getting out_. Hanayo had never told Nozomi much about the other gods’ domains; their peaceful life away from the pantheon’s politicking had admittedly left Nozomi a little… sheltered. And now it was coming back to bite her. If she was trapped in the land of the dead, did that mean she was, well, dead? What did not being able to cross the river mean? The Underworld was definitely outside of Demeter’s domain; did that mean Hanayo would never be able to find her? Was she really trapped forever?

A skeletal hand clapped on her shoulder, and Nozomi jumped. She turned with a shudder, only to look down the impossibly long length of the arm, all bone and sinew and too many joints, to Charon’s wide grin. It said, “There is no going back. Only forward.”

Nozomi gestured confusedly at the black waters, then froze in a horrible bolt of understanding. “No,” she whispered. “No, you wouldn’t. All those souls - ”

“The others are waiting,” Charon said, and looked past her. “Welcome. Coin for passage.”

Then Charon’s hand pulled her back into the queue. The shades at her back pressed forward, and Nozomi went down one step, two steps; she grabbed for the barge’s side to stop herself from falling down into the black depths, but cried out as the wood seared into her palm, cold-hot. Desperate, Nozomi swung her torch at the shades, but it passed through them harmlessly.

Charon held out its hand for the next shade’s coin. One foot was in the water. The current wrenched at her ankle. Nozomi looked down, and the water wasn’t black anymore, it was pale with the faces of the forever-drowning dead looking up at her, the ones with no payment for the ferryman. Just like her.

A voice cut through the haze of terror, clear as a clarion. “ _Back!_ ”

The blue flames of Nozomi’s torch flared, then lashed out, suddenly so hot Nozomi almost forgot the chill of the river waters; the shades fell back before the wall of fire that appeared, and Charon cringed away.

Nozomi stumbled forward into the eye of the fiery hurricane on the steps, shaking with adrenaline. With a quiet whoosh, the tendrils of fire shrank back down in an instant, returning to the heatless torch as if nothing had happened.

The scent of narcissi hung in the air.

Clutching the torch with a death grip, Nozomi slowly rose to her feet. Just beyond where the edges of the wall of fire were stood a tall woman with her hand outstretched - blonde, clothed in black robes, with eyes the same pale blue as the fire. A silver key hung at her neck, oddly bright in the dim light of the Underworld.

Maybe it was the adrenaline. Maybe it was the relief of being saved making Nozomi delirious. Maybe Nozomi just hadn’t met many people in her several hundred years of mostly-isolated existence. But the woman with the pale skin and the imperial look in her eyes was the most beautiful thing she had seen.

“Charon.” An undercurrent of controlled fury ran through the woman’s clear voice. “How dare you try to take her? Can’t you see she’s alive? I only gave you power over the dead mortals. Anything else comes to me.”

The ferryman bowed deeply but said nothing. It flickered through a series of agitated faces. The woman glared a moment longer, then sighed, lowered her hand, and turned to inspect Nozomi, who was staring slackjawed. Nozomi started at the focus on her, clearing her throat lamely.

“Uh, hello,” Nozomi said. She gave the woman a weak smile. “The local god, I’m guessing?”

The woman’s eyes narrowed, and Nozomi held back a wince. Apparently protocol in the Underworld was stricter than what she and Hanayo used. “I am Hades, the Queen of the Underworld, goddess of the dead,” she said. “Your name, mortal?”

“Nozomi,” she automatically responded, then quickly corrected herself. “Persephone, I mean. A goddess of nature, technically daughter of Demeter. Not a mortal.” Giving the familiar name she used around deer, plants and Hanayo didn’t exactly seem appropriate in front of this goddess.

Hades frowned. “Claiming godhood is a serious thing, I hope you know. Even if you choose a minor god’s identity to claim.”

“If you take me back to the surface, H- Demeter and I would be happy to prove it to you,” Nozomi offered, taking the implied insult in good grace. It was technically true that she didn’t have much power, after all. Nothing to do about it - though this was a new, worryingly low level of magic. She shook her foot halfheartedly to try to get rid of the greasy water clinging to it.

Hades scrutinised Nozomi with a suspicious gaze, and Nozomi tried not to squirm. Finally, Hades turned away and started tracing her hand through the air. She said, “It doesn’t matter. You’re a living soul in the land of the dead, and that makes it my duty to decide how to deal with you. I’ll hear your story in the proper place.”

Lines of silvery-blue light trailed in the wake of Hades’ fingers, sketching an arch in the air that quickly solidified into a rippling portal-doorway. Through it, as if through murky water, Nozomi could see the faint outlines of a building.

Hades stepped to the side and gestured towards the doorway. “To my palace,” she said. “After you.”

How strangely courteous. Nozomi moved towards it obligingly. “So I don’t have to pay to gain entry to the Underworld?”

“Seeing as you’re not dead, I’m willing to bend the rules a little,” Hades allowed. “I have to take you to my throne room somehow. And the barge is reserved for the truly dead. Even if I ordered Charon to take you across, you would fall into the River Styx without fail.”

One encounter with those foul waters was quite enough for Nozomi. Holding the torch close to her, Nozomi stepped through the doorway.

She emerged before an ornate gate twice her height. Behind its intricate bars towered an ancient palace, time-smoothed walls reaching high into the gloom. The back of the palace disappeared into a sheer cliffside that spread endlessly in every direction - quite possibly one of the impossibly large walls that contained the Underworld.

It had a strange feel to it… lost in time, almost; there were parts belonging to the current mortals’ aesthetics, then others that Nozomi vaguely recognised from far in the future, and sections entirely foreign to her, too old for even a young god’s awareness. Somehow, the solemn hand-crafted beauty of a hundred ages had been melded into a single colossal building.

“This way,” Hades said, the gates opening at a flick of her hand. Nozomi, struck dumb, followed.

The lacquered walls reflected Nozomi’s wonder as they entered. Jewels shined with sourceless light along the curves of the ceiling arched high overhead. Painstakingly detailed statues stood at the many doorways leading off the hall, faces so stern and weapons so sharp that Nozomi half thought they were actual, living guards. But the clack of Hades’ sandals and the softer pad of Nozomi’s bare feet were the only sounds in the entrance hall.

For all its grandeur, the palace felt incredibly lonely.

Hades led them straight ahead through the entrance hall and into a throne room, sparsely decorated with the earth’s priceless metals and lit with braziers of the same blue fire. Striding to the high-backed throne at the end of the room, Hades dropped into it, lounging with a careless grace that belied her intent gaze on Nozomi.

“You have my full attention,” Hades said, one hand toying with the key at her neck. She seemed more relaxed away from Charon. “I’ll hear your story and decide if I can return you to the living.”

That only raised the question, “You mean you might not be able to?”

“If I think you’re lying. If I think you were so close to death in the first place that extending your lifespan would do no good. If I think you’re a demigod Zeus sent in one of his little games.”

“That seems to rely a lot on your personal opinion,” Nozomi noted.

To her pleasant surprise, even though she didn’t smile, Hades’ eyes crinkled a little in amusement as she said, “Maybe so; justice is always subjective. But I have had centuries of experience judging the dead. I’d like to hope I can tell truth from lies by now. Try me, Nozomi.”

So Nozomi closed her eyes and summoned what she could remember to the front of her mind.

“I was out exploring, looking for new places I hadn’t been before. Demeter’s the one the humans pray to most, since I have less power over the crops, so I tried to avoid populated areas. There was a small glen I found, probably just a few hours ago, with the most beautiful narcissi I’ve ever seen. We don’t have many of those around our home. I tried to cross the glen to get a closer look. That’s when the ground shook under my feet, and a hole opened up, just a few steps away from the flowers.

"I probably fell.” Nozomi shrugged, smiling self-consciously. “I don’t remember much, just that I woke up at the bottom of the hole.” A half-truth. The flash of terror at being swallowed whole by darkness before unconsciousness wasn’t something she had to share with Hades.

“How long was this fall?” Hades interrupted. Her expression had changed; she seemed to be avoiding Nozomi’s gaze, looking somewhat… guilty.

“A hundred meters, maybe? More than what a mortal should have been able to survive.” Hint, hint.

Hades hm'ed thoughtfully, leaning her chin on interlocked hands on the throne’s arms. “Continue.”

There wasn’t much left. Nozomi quickly recounted the ground closing, the torches and the passageway, and the mishap with Charon. When she finished, she stood there in silence, watching Hades furrow her brow and think.

Finally, Hades let out a sigh and sat back in the throne. “You’re not lying,” she admitted. “But at the same time, I don’t believe you’re a god. Why didn’t your powers help you? How are you still injured from the fall?” Reflexively, Nozomi glanced at her bruises, fading but still present. “I don’t think you’re a mere mortal, and I don’t think you’re one of Zeus’ pawns, but you might be a hero of some sort.”

Nozomi’s eyebrows lifted. “How flattering, but I don’t think I’ve done a single heroic thing in my life.”

“Is your magic back? Can you do anything now?”

“Even if my magic was back, I wouldn’t be able to use it,” Nozomi explained. “I can only use it around plants, living flora. I’m not as powerful as Demeter; I can’t just create life. And - well, you wouldn't have a garden hidden somewhere here, would you?”

“… nothing you could use your powers on,” Hades agreed. “I’ll try to See it another way, then.”

She rose from her seat and crossed the short distance to Nozomi. Any other self-deprecating remarks dried in Nozomi’s mouth as Hades stopped bare centimeters from her, locking their eyes together. Up close, the brilliant blue of the Underworld god’s eyes were even more stunning than Nozomi had thought. “Your hand, please,” Hades said after a pause.

If nothing else, not being a 'mere mortal' seemed to gain Nozomi more manners. Nozomi offered her hand, then winced when Hades brushed Nozomi’s palm. Hades drew back quickly before turning over Nozomi’s hand, palm-up. Her pale fingers were surprisingly gentle on Nozomi’s wrist.

A patchy burn was seared onto Nozomi’s palm from when she had tried to touch the barge; faint smears of golden ichor covered her skin. The pain had been forgotten somewhere along the journey through Hades’ otherworldly palace.

“The blood of the gods,” Nozomi pointed out.

“Or of the demigods,” Hades countered, though she seemed more worried than wanting to disprove Nozomi. “I’ve never met a demigod in flesh, only in spirit. For all I know, they could bleed gold too.”

Nozomi had never met one before either, so she conceded the point. Hades released her hand and reached for the other, intent on doing whatever it was she had been planning. She held Nozomi’s intact hand in hers and closed her eyes in concentration.

Holding the torch was nothing compared to this. It was like a sixth sense, feeling the deep well of power standing in front of Nozomi, barely contained in a shape understandable to the physical eye. The magic whispered against her skin, inquisitive. For a moment, the entire throne room seemed dimmer, eclipsed by the spectre of searing blue magic that seemed to overlay Hades; then Nozomi blinked, and it was gone. Hades let go.

“Found what you were looking for?” Nozomi asked, laughing and shaking her tingling hand to hide her urge to reach for Hades’ hand again. The rush of power she had felt from Hades was heady, intoxicating. She wondered what Hades had felt from her.

Flexing her own hand pensively, Hades answered, “I found nothing.” At Nozomi’s falling expression, she hurried to add, “Not - not nothing like a mortal. As if there was something there, and it was taken away, leaving an absence.”

“Taken away permanently?”

“I’m not sure.” Somewhere in the back of Nozomi’s mind, behind the worry, she noted that Hades seemed to be trying to comfort her, however awkwardly and clinically she was doing it. Hades spun the key at her neck agitatedly. “I’ve heard of gods losing their powers temporarily, or having them boosted, at critical times - such as the Titanomachy. If that’s why it’s happening to you now, something important could be coming. They’ll be returned to you when the time is right.” Then Hades seemed to gather herself, straightening and adding, “Or if you are a hero, powers can be lent, and what I felt could have been just lingering traces.”

“Why do you want to believe I’m not a god so badly?” Nozomi asked. After a trial to prove her divinity, she felt entitled to ask a few questions of her own.

Hades scowled, but it didn’t seem to be aimed at Nozomi - rather, at the ceiling. “For centuries, most of the pantheon has forgotten about the god of the Underworld. And that’s fine. I don’t want any part of Zeus’ court. But if another god were trapped in the Underworld, Zeus would be glad to use any excuse to pull me - and everybody else - back into his games. I’d rather you be just a demigod not worth his time.

"But right now, that doesn’t matter.” Hades finally stepped back, though she didn’t take her throne again. “I believe that you don’t belong to the Underworld. I don’t have the ability to bring you back to the surface myself, since that lies outside of my domain. Only two other gods can come and go from the Underworld freely. When they come again, which they should within a few weeks, I will ask if they can take you back. Until then, you will stay here under my protection. Give me your torch, please.”

Nozomi handed over the torch. Their fingers touched, and she half-expected the same sense of Hades’ powers, but nothing happened. Apparently that bit of magic had been put away for another day. Instead, Hades held the torch in her right hand and wrapped her left around her key, mouthing silent words. Blue flames flared once before settling back down into stillness.

“I’d prefer if you stayed inside the palace, but if you wander, the torch will guide you back here,” Hades said briskly, launching into a list of instructions. “It will also protect you from anything that tries to harm you. If you still need my help, call my name, and I will hear you anywhere in the Underworld. Use any of the rooms in the palace, but please don’t go into the very back. You won't feel hunger or thirst in the Underworld, but if you do want food, tell me. Don’t use water from any of the rivers. I’ll bring you bandages for your hand.”

The barrage of information over, Hades turned away and started sketching another doorway, a clear dismissal. Before she could leave, Nozomi quickly gathered herself and said, “Thank you for your help, Hades. And thanks for saving me earlier, too. I won’t forget what you’ve done for me.”

Hades’ hand faltered, and she glanced at Nozomi over her shoulder. “… you’re welcome,” she said, shooting Nozomi an uncertain smile. Then she finished the doorway and stepped through almost before it solidified, leaving Nozomi alone in the throne room.

Suddenly, in the absence of Hades’ company, the palace’s quiet loomed. Nozomi swayed with unexpected exhaustion. “Use any room in the palace, huh,” she murmured to herself. Her initial plans for some exploration were quickly put aside in favour of finding a bed and possibly sleeping the next century away.

When she emerged into the entrance hall, Nozomi noticed the other exits she had glanced off in her first pass of the room. The first few doors she opened led off into other long corridors, or into other kinds of rooms, most of which she closed when she saw no bed. The living room and the very large, very plushy couch was tempting - but Nozomi imagined Hades finding her sprawled snoring half off the couch, and promptly moved on.

The first room on the second floor had a bed. That was all Nozomi needed. Fumbling the torch into a sconce and closing the door with her foot, Nozomi burrowed into the clean, crisp blankets with a content sigh. Thoughts still swirled lazily in her mind, but her limbs drooped with exhaustion. Within seconds of hitting the bed, she was fast asleep.

* * *

When she woke, it was to confusion. Why was it so quiet - where were the birds? And why was the sunlight so dim and strange?

Then Nozomi caught sight of the torch and remembered.

Pushing back the covers, she sat up. Something scritched against her hand, stinging and itchy. Her injured hand was wrapped in linen bandages and finished off with a neat bow.

“Cute,” she said absentmindedly, then glanced around as if Hades would magically appear to look disapprovingly at her. She didn’t, of course (half to Nozomi’s disappointment). Instead, she took in the room she hadn’t paid any attention to the night before.

The bedroom was small but tidy. A narrow bed, a dresser with two shallow drawers, and a wooden chair - practically ascetic, and completely at odds to the grandiose throne room. The small window high up, when opened by Nozomi on her tip-toes, gave a view of the Underworld’s mist-covered ceiling, and not much else. Pale grey light pooled on the floor, a washed out copy of the sunlight far above.

Nozomi leaned her forehead against the wall beneath the window and sighed. A good night’s sleep hadn’t done anything to solve her problems. Hanayo would worry. Nozomi herself would be fine - Hades seemed trustworthy enough - but Nozomi’s powers was also a worry. There was nothing she could do down here except wait it out.

But sitting still for a month or more and feeling sorry for herself didn’t appeal to Nozomi.

“Looks like it’s just you and me,” she told the torch cheerfully. “Bring me back here if we get lost?”

The steady flame flickered once. Nozomi took that as a yes. Humming a snippet of a tune under her breath, she pushed the door open and stepped out.

She wandered, mostly without a goal. At first, she went down the stairs to the entrance hall again, feeling the need to check that it was all still there just as she had left it, that it wasn’t just a dream. She cracked open the doors to the throne room and peered in. No Hades lounging in the throne; no sign of life. Then it was off through the entrance hall, opening every door for a quick peek, building her mental map of the palace.

Quick peeks turned into long, awed stares, then cautious explorations. The entrance hall and throne room were opulent - a flashy, broody display of the earth’s riches - everything one would expect from the Underworld ruler’s home. In stark contrast, the rooms Nozomi found were a little bit of everything from everywhere and everytime.

In one, there was a roaring fireplace, round logs lit with everlasting fire in front of a thick rug and several incredibly plush-looking armchairs. In another, a pit sunk into the floor was filled with cushions, a long bar of a table stretching across the center of the pit. A bright, airy room with slender-legged furniture, light streaming through a skylight that shouldn’t have existed; a circular room with only circular seats and a round table; a seemingly empty room that, when Nozomi carefully pressed on outlined levers, folded benches and shelves out of its walls.

Dimly, Nozomi remembered watching Demeter sing their home out of the widest trees. Had Hades built every room in this palace too?

The second floor was no different. Nozomi wandered frequently across forests and through fields, but exploration was much more interesting when every room was a new, self-contained delight. A bedroom where everything - bedside table, hammock, seat - was suspended and nothing but Nozomi touched the ground. A beautiful canopy bed, the covers translucent and floating in the breeze of Nozomi’s opening the door. Wall-to-wall bookshelves, mattress stacked on top of a writing desk almost as an afterthought.

It was like entering a new biome every few steps. Her worries forgotten in the thrill of discovery, Nozomi passed the time ferreting out the palace’s secrets. Mindful of Hades’ request, she kept away from the back of the palace, going up another floor every time she felt as if she were encroaching.

And then she opened a door on the fourth floor and stopped.

There were a pair of legs and a torso draped over the top of a wardrobe, dressed in plain black slacks and what seemed to be a shirt. One foot had a boot on. The other was cheerfully socked-only. Both scrabbled against the wardrobe side as the rest of their person muttered curses beyond Nozomi’s view.

“Hello?” Nozomi asked carefully.

The legs and torso yelped, and a blonde head shot up, blue eyes wide and panicked. Nozomi made eye contact with Hades for half a second. Then Hades’ head hit the ceiling, and with a second pained yelp, she rolled off the wardrobe.

“Hey!” Nozomi darted forward to catch her and just barely slid there in time. She flinched as a hammer hit the wooden floor next to them. With a dying creak, the loose wardrobe side Nozomi hadn’t seen slowly slumped forward, half-detached from the rest of the wardrobe without Hades holding it in place.

Hades groaned, then opened her eyes. When Nozomi looked down, Hades blinked, eyes going very round, then shot upright again. “Sorry!” she said, holding a hand out to Nozomi. “And, uh. Thank you. Nozomi.”

Nozomi grunted as she pulled herself up with Hades’ help. Once they were both off the ground, Hades dusted her palms off on her slacks, determinedly staring at the sagging wardrobe. The tips of her ears were red.

“Don’t worry about it,” Nozomi reassured her. There was a much more important thing she needed to talk to Hades about. “So it was you! You built everything in this palace?”

Hades nodded jerkily. The red was now chasing across her cheeks. Sawdust and wood chips clung to her plain black clothes, and she was halfheartedly picking at them, still avoiding Nozomi’s gaze. “I take it you’ve been looking around, then,” she said.

“I think I’ve had a seat in every chair I’ve seen,” Nozomi said, grinning. Last night’s Hades was a sight to behold, but a little intimidating, considering she was interrogating Nozomi. Flustered Hades, on the other hand, was kind of adorable.

At that, Hades looked up, confusion written in her quirked eyebrows. Nozomi went on. “It’s lovely, you know? I haven’t been in many buildings, but everything I’ve seen here is better than anything I’ve seen on the surface.”

“Oh,” said Hades. She cleared her throat and scratched her cheek with one finger, not quite hiding a small smile. “Thank you. I’m… glad you like it.”

They both looked down at Hades’ hand holding Nozomi’s. With a start, Hades let go. Nozomi held back both the urge to laugh and the urge to grab Hades’ hand again, just to see how she would react.

Taking pity on Hades’ mortified countenance, Nozomi walked over to the wardrobe, pushing on the broken panel to try and fit it back together. “Do you hand-make everything?” she asked, tapping a torn out nail.

“I don’t have to.” Hades shifted a little closer, picking up the hammer and spinning it in her hands. “It’s more of a hobby, hand-making things.”

At Nozomi’s questioning look, Hades elaborated. “As the number of dead increase, I expand the Underworld. That’s all magic. I build some villages and gathering places for them sometimes, but they don’t really… notice much of anything. The handmade things are mostly here, to pass the time.”

“It’s no fun when you can just snap your fingers and make a new wing,” Nozomi agreed. Hades nodded earnestly.

How long had it been since someone other than Hades walked the corridors of this palace? Did the other two gods who visited know? It was kind of sad, having such a strange and beautiful home, but with no one except the creator to appreciate it.

Well. Now there was Nozomi, who would gladly appreciate the creations and creator alike.

“You do a beautiful job,” Nozomi complimented, smiling when Hades looked sheepishly pleased. “But it does make me curious - if this is what you have out here, what’s in the back?”

Hades stiffened. “The back?” she said, a little too fast. “It’s… it’s not finished. It’s not worth seeing. Please, stay out of there for now. I mean - ” She cleared her throat again and straightened, gathering her former composure. “As I said last night, the back is off limits.”

Interesting, but Nozomi wouldn’t pry. “Okay,” she said easily. There were plenty of other things she could do to amuse herself. Starting with learning more about Hades, who wasn’t nearly as intimidating as she had presented herself as in their first meeting. Moving aside so Hades could start working on the wardrobe again, a thought struck Nozomi. “So do you have much time for your hobby? Or am I bothering you? I can leave you alone, if you’d prefer.”

“No,” Hades said, a little forcefully. They both paused. Then Hades quickly shook her head and, focusing on the wardrobe and not Nozomi, said, “No, you’re not bothering me. I have more free time than you expect, I think. I don’t mind the company. It’s been a while since I’ve had some.” Her words were on the verge of tripping over each other. If it were anyone Nozomi knew better, she would have said Hades was babbling. Realising the same thing, Hades abruptly clamped her mouth shut.

That wouldn’t do. Taking a seat on a mostly-complete chair, Nozomi asked, “Ah, really? So what kind of work do you have to do?”

Hades answered Nozomi’s questions - curtly at first, then as Nozomi responded with interest, opening up little by little. Explanations turned into short stories, which Nozomi repaid in kind, regaling Hades with tales of her and Demeter’s little adventures on the surface.

Hades didn’t guide the dead down personally, she just housed them when they arrived. Hades didn’t get sacrifices very often, but when she did, she tried to grant the mortal whatever wish they had (usually to communicate with their dead mother or something similar). Hades really didn’t have much company, apart from the other two gods’ visits; Nozomi falling down was a bit of a new experience for both of them.

Sensing that Hades still wasn’t ready to believe her divinity, Nozomi stuck to sillier stories. The time she’d gotten lost and found she’d walked in a giant circle back to her home; the time she’d been stuck in a tree for an entire night because a group of mortals had set up camp right underneath and she didn’t want to appear near them…

If there was a little embellishment, that was only because Nozomi was an excellent storyteller. It also helped that Nozomi’s description of her terrified flight from a rampaging boar drew the first actual laugh out of Hades.

Halfway through an explanation of her current project, Hades stopped and tilted her head, as if listening to something far away. “I have to go,” she said, a tinge of regret in her voice that echoed in Nozomi.

“Godly duties and such?” asked Nozomi, mentally shushing the pang of disappointment. Talking with Hades had been pleasant. No, more than that. Nozomi had started out only wanting to keep the company of a beautiful, interesting woman; but now she was helplessly invested in this relationship. Once behind the stiff, cold front, Hades was awkwardly charming, with quiet but endless enthusiasm for her hobbies and a way of listening intently that drew words out of Nozomi with ease.

She stood, dusting off flecks of wood that had accumulated on her tunic, and offered Hades a smile. “I’ve kept you long enough, anyway. It’s been fun.”

Hades fidgeted with the key around her neck, nodding. Then she exhaled, dropped her hand and said, a little hesitantly, “I wouldn’t mind talking again.”

Success. Nozomi couldn’t quite hold back the widening smile as she affirmed, “Until next time, then. I’ll see you around, Hades.”

As she made to exit the room, Hades said, “Nozomi? It’s, uh. Eli.”

Nozomi turned.

“Call me Eli,” Hades repeated, fumbling the short syllables as if she hadn’t spoken them aloud for a long time. The silvery portal-door was already open and she seemed to be resisting the urge to flee through it.

“… Eli.” Nozomi beamed. “I’ll see you around, then, Eli.”

And then Hades… Eli was gone through the portal.

If Nozomi did a little victory dance as she left the room, well, no one was there to see it.

* * *

It took five more days for Nozomi to stop getting lost. The torch, it turned out, wasn’t kind enough to bring her back to the little bedroom she’d started out in. As long as she was in the palace, the magic seemed to consider her safe and not in need of directing.

She ended up picking a bedroom at random the first night she couldn’t find her way back… and then the second… and then the third. If nothing else, the Underworld was an excellent place for a good night’s sleep. Nozomi took the duty of testing every bed upon herself after she gave up trying to be consistent. It was hardly a hardship.

In those long five days, she ran into Eli thrice.

The first time, Eli almost didn’t notice her - probably because of the towering pile of scrolls stacked in her arms. When Nozomi called Eli’s name in cheerful greeting, Eli stepped on the hem of her long robes and nearly spilled blueprints all over the floor, barely saved by Nozomi’s intervention. Flustered, she stammered something about lots of work - which Nozomi had gathered from the fact that she couldn’t see Eli’s face behind all the paper - and left.

The second time, Nozomi wandered in on Eli painstakingly fitting a writing desk together, her formal outer clothes discarded in a pile by the door. Eli greeted her with a warm smile this time, which Nozomi returned in full. They spent some time tinkering with the secret compartments and chatting idly, but again, Eli was pulled away by her duties, and again, Nozomi was left alone.

The third time, Eli didn’t know Nozomi was there.

She had made her way to the very top of the palace, where the doors lay far and few between. One set of double doors stood slightly ajar; though the entire palace was well-lit with torches at regular intervals, enough bright light still spilled through the crack to cast shadows on the floor.

Her interest was piqued even though she knew that she would find the only other person in the Underworld in there. Nozomi peered through the open door.

At first, she didn’t know how to describe the room - large, clear of any furnishings, not-sunlight pouring through the crystal-covered ceiling. The word slowly came to her from centuries ahead. A ballroom, built for five hundred. Nozomi looked and saw in every hand-wrought wall engraving the ghosts of the mortals who would build halls like it to fill with music and dance and laughter.

And there, in the middle of the polished floor, was Eli.

Her body was dwarfed by the scale of the room, and yet her presence filled it as she spun in slow, gentle arcs. Nozomi found herself holding her breath as she watched Eli’s careful movements. Her hair was loose, and for once, she wore not her usual orthodox black, but flowing grey and blue, after the fashion of the mortal women. Her face was smoothed in peace and concentration.

She looked happy, soft. It felt like something that wasn’t for anyone’s eyes.

Moving slowly, Nozomi eased herself one step backwards, then another. She made her way as silently as possible back down the floors until she found herself in familiar rooms once again. Finding a couch and curling up on it, Nozomi closed her eyes and breathed, trying to balance the guilt of intruding on a private moment and… what?

Her stomach swooped as if she’d missed a step going down the stairs. She liked Eli, that was for sure. Eli had saved her at the most dangerous moment of her immortal life, had taken her in and given her refuge for as long as she wanted. More than that, Eli was interesting, a kind, considerate conversation partner with a wealth of knowledge and a quiet sense of humour. Even the awkward idiosyncrasies and the stiff facade she tried to keep as Hades charmed Nozomi, in their own odd way. To say nothing of how Nozomi appreciated Eli’s excellent looks.

But did that mean Nozomi loved Eli? As more than a fellow immortal, more than a friend? Was the goddess of nature even allowed to romantically engage with the goddess of the dead, when it came to that?

And wasn’t she getting too far ahead of herself when they had only just tentatively begun to explore friendship?

Groaning into her palms, Nozomi rolled off the couch to indulge in a melodramatic sprawl. She was just getting antsy. That was all; no wonder she was getting worked up over her relationship with Eli when it was the only relationship available to Nozomi at the time.

Glimpses of the local god were well and good, but Nozomi was used to the constant company of other living things - Hanayo, animals, even just a good tree. Here, there wasn’t as much as a breath of wind in the palace’s empty halls. Time with Eli passed in an enjoyable blur. Time alone stretched indefinitely before her.

With a start, Nozomi sat upright, clapping her hands decisively as if the sharp sound alone would dispel her boredom and anxiousness. “Time to go for an adventure,” she said aloud.

If she couldn’t have the company of the living, then she would try the company of the dead.

The palace gates swung open and closed without a sound. Nozomi’s torch’s light was barely visible in the pale gleam of what passed as afternoon in the Underworld. Eli controlled her domain’s light cycle, but couldn’t replicate Apollo’s warm yellows and oranges on the surface.

Nozomi snickered under her breath at the sight of the little signpost in front of the palace. A bit of whimsy on Eli’s part, most likely, since she knew the Underground better than the back of her hand, but it was very convenient for visitors.

Elysium she would pass over for now; Nozomi wasn’t sure whether she was actually allowed in the sanctum of the heroes, no matter what Eli believed her to be. The Fields of Punishment didn't sound appealing, and remembering Eli’s warnings, she would keep well away from the direction labelled ‘Tartarus’. Which left the Fields of Asphodel.

The walk was much shorter than Nozomi had expected it to be. Within a few minutes along a winding path, she stood at the top of a small ridge, looking over an impossibly vast plain.

Here and there were dotted small villages, huts and public squares clustered together. But the shades of the dead didn’t stay in the villages. The dead covered the entire plain, wavering shadows as far as the eye could see, sitting or standing or milling aimlessly.

Nozomi went down the shallow steps of the stair cut into the path, torch held in front of her. Its pale blue light was the only visible colour in the fields. As she went, the shades seemed to turn and slowly drift towards her.

The memory of the Styx and the shades at her back flashed into her mind. Stopping at the base of the stairs, Nozomi clutched the torch a little tighter, aware as never before of the lack of life around her and the numb lack of power within her. The shades stopped short of her, clustering loosely.

Maybe it was the steady flames of the torch keeping them back. But the shades didn’t seem hostile. They didn’t seem to feel anything at all, merely moths drawn to the light that was Nozomi’s bright, burning immortality.

“Hello,” Nozomi tried, lowering the torch a little. “I’m Nozomi.”

The dead whispered at her, voices mere scraps of sound. Though she could hear them, she couldn’t understand any of what they were saying. What seemed like resigned despair flitted across some translucent faces. Some turned away, drifting in other directions; others stayed, watching Nozomi blankly.

Not just shades of their former, physical bodies, then. Shades of their existence - memories of the long-dead mortals they used to be, catalogued in the endless pages of the Underworld and remembered only by their ruler-keeper.

A familiar face caught Nozomi’s eye, and she turned. It was the teenage girl in the queue behind Nozomi. She watched Nozomi with complete detachment.

Torch held in loose fingers by her side, Nozomi reached towards the girl. She gave no reaction. Nozomi’s fingers passed through her shoulder - neither hot nor cold, no thicker or thinner than the air around them, just different. Shivering anyway, Nozomi pulled her hand back, feeling her heart ache.

“I see,” she whispered. She turned and started the trudge up the stairs and back to the palace, leaving the silent subjects of Hades behind. There was nothing she could do for them.

She met Eli halfway back.

“Nozomi,” Eli said by way of greeting, one eyebrow lifted in surprise. The bright garments were gone, replaced by her usual garb. She seemed to have just left the palace as she came along the path Nozomi was returning on. “What are you doing out here?”

For a moment, Nozomi panicked, imagining that Eli knew Nozomi had seen her dancing and came out to accuse Nozomi. Then logic settled in again as Nozomi took in Eli’s face - puzzled but calm. Not angry. Guilt was irrational, anyway, when Nozomi could give her the absolute truth. “I was just a little bored, and I decided to pay the locals a visit.”

Eli looked past Nozomi to where the Fields of Asphodel lay beyond the ridge. “Ah.”

“They weren’t very talkative, unfortunately,” Nozomi said, trying for a smile. Eli, who had spent most of her conscious life around the silent dead, would probably find Nozomi’s pity strange. Brisk, business-like Eli would probably think Nozomi too soft-hearted for the dull realities of the afterlife.

Instead, Eli smiled back, a little sad but soft. “They aren’t really, yes. But they know enough to come to me if something’s wrong.”

“Something wrong?”

“I used to judge them all one by one, back when there weren’t so many mortals. Now most of them go straight to the Fields of Asphodel. The heroes usually come to me themselves, asking for Elysium, but the wrongdoers hide in the Fields and agitate the others. The other shades have to bring their complaints to me.”  

“Is that what you’re doing now? Meeting with them?” Nozomi asked.

“Ah, no.” Eli put one hand behind her head. She looked a little bashful. “They come to the palace. I was planning on checking the roads. Making sure they’re still tidy, the signposts aren’t fading, that sort of thing. A lot of buildings here tend to crumble over time - nothing really lasts, except the dead. They know where to go, anyway, so it’s a bit silly…”

It wasn’t silly. It was incredibly, heartbreakingly kind, to pave the way over and over again even when the shades didn’t care. Nozomi shook her head with a disbelieving laugh. “You’re too sweet, you know?”

Eli’s pale cheeks flushed. “I’m just doing my job,” she mumbled.

Nozomi recalled Demeter’s scarce descriptions of Zeus, and tried fitting the scraps into the throne of the Underworld. The imagined Hades fell far short of the real Hades looking embarrassed but pleased in front of Nozomi. “No,” she said firmly, willing Eli to believe her. “No, you’re doing so much more than 'just your job’. Thank you, Eli.” Eli twitched again at the sound of her name, but Nozomi barely noticed, wrapped up in her own thoughts.

Compared to that, Persephone wasn’t good for much at all.

Very softly, very tentatively, Eli laid a hand on Nozomi’s shoulder, jarring her out of her thoughts. “I’m not sure what’s wrong,” Eli said, stepping around each word with the awkward care of the unaccustomed, “but you seem… distressed. Is there anything I can do to help?”

Looking into Eli’s worried blue eyes made Nozomi want to admit everything she had felt that day, no matter how trivial - her loneliness, her intrusion on Eli in her private moment, her useless sympathy for the languishing dead, her strange feelings for Eli. “I’m just feeling a little homesick,” she confided, playing it off with a shrug of her other shoulder.

Eli didn’t move her hand, and for that, Nozomi was grateful. The weight of her hand was comforting and surprisingly warm. Eli swallowed, eyes darting away, before she looked back. She said, “If… if you’d like, you could come to - I mean, I’ve nearly finished my project in the back. It’s not much, but you might enjoy it. Come by in the next few days if you’re interested?”

“I’d love to,” Nozomi said honestly. A chance to see more of Eli’s handiwork was always welcome, especially her mysterious 'back project’. Maybe it would help dispel her strange mood. Gathering her own nerves, Nozomi put her hand over Eli’s, offering a warm smile.

Eli smiled back, eyes bright in the lowering gloom of the Underworld dusk. Then she stepped away, hand falling away with some reluctance. “I have to finish my rounds,” she said.

“Of course. I’ll see you soon?”

“Soon,” she affirmed. “Till later, Nozomi.”

Nozomi lifted her hand in farewell, and Eli went on her way. The torch flickered cheerily as Nozomi returned to the palace, casting clear blue light over her path. The stones were neatly repaved.

* * *

The 'back project’ was surprisingly hard to find.

Every time Nozomi thought she’d finally found it, the door opened to yet another beautiful but perfectly normal room. Eli was little help; since the talk, Nozomi had only caught glimpses of her to and from her various duties, looking alternately worried and frustrated. Nozomi was tempted to call out Eli’s name and stop her a few times, but pride won out. She had plenty of time on her hands. The search in and of itself was enough to keep her entertained for a while.

It took a few days for Nozomi to realise that the back of the palace was not necessarily in the palace.

Slipping out through the massive doors, Nozomi whistled an old village song as she walked along the outside of the palace. Her attention pricked up when she found that the palace walls didn’t merge seamlessly with the cliff face, as she had thought, but left a narrow crack through which a person might squeeze.

As she inched along the path, torch held loosely in front of her, the light began to change. Nozomi had left the palace sometime in the morning. The light outside painted everything a pale shade of grey; her torch added a touch of blue. But the further into the crevice she went, the warmer the light grew, the stony walls taking on an earthier hue.

It almost looked like surface light.

And then Nozomi emerged, blinking, into the 'back project’.

Her breath hitched and stuck somewhere in her throat. The torch fell from her limp fingers, rolling a few feet, and bumped to a stop. Her freed hand rose to her mouth. For one beautiful, impossible moment, she thought she was home.

Before her lay a small but pristine garden. Flowers grew in a loose spiral, each bed filled to the brim with bright petals, their stems disappearing into rich, dark earth. Each arm of the spiral met at the centre in a tall tree that cast dappled shade over a wooden bench at the center.

_Shade._ Nozomi craned her head backwards and inhaled sharply, the sound like a sob. Far, far above, the unceasing darkness of the Underworld’s ceiling was finally broken by a thin fissure. Sunlight - real, warm, yellow sunlight - shone weak but true onto the garden. Nozomi could see the faint motes of dust drifting through the beams. The faint scent of the surface filtered down to her, and she breathed deeply, filling her lungs with fresh breezes and green plants and sweet flowers.

“Oh,” she exhaled slowly. Moving as if in a dream, she knelt down in the soft dirt of the path and reached out to the nearest flower.

It was only as she was about to touch it that she saw it for what it was. Its pale white petals weren’t just pale - they were translucent. The green stem glittered. Her fingers touched the curved leaves and flinched back from the hard cold.

The entire garden was made of glass.

The disappointment lasted only seconds. Nozomi looked at the flower with new eyes. The detail was impeccable, down to the whisper-thin stamens. The one next to it had a slightly different tilt to its petals; the next was slightly brighter, the narcissus’ yellows more pronounced.

Each and every one of the flowers was hand-made. “Oh,” Nozomi whispered again. It must have been the work of years - even centuries.

She didn’t dare touch. She padded carefully through the paths between the spiral arms, toes curling in the earth, and sank down onto the bench.

And there Nozomi stayed, taking in the garden’s flecks of light, feeling the dabs of warmth the sunlight left on her bared skin, savoring the scent of life from the world far above.

She didn’t know how long it was until Eli came. When Eli saw her in the garden, Eli paused in the entrance, looking as if she were about to turn away. Nozomi caught her gaze. The slender line of Eli’s throat bobbed as she swallowed, but at Nozomi’s wistful grin and little wave, she entered, stepping slowly along the path until she came to a halt a few feet away from Nozomi.

Nozomi patted the seat next to her. Eli dutifully sat. The cloth of her robes brushed against Nozomi’s fingers, sending a tingle across her skin.

They looked at the garden together in silence. It was comfortable, soothing; Eli’s steady presence was like a cool balm smoothed over Nozomi’s lingering ache for companionship. For a while, the only sound was the sound of their quiet breaths.

It was Eli who broke the silence. “I lied when I said I was almost finished.” She seemed surprised by the words coming out of her own mouth, and her gaze flicked sideways, gauging Nozomi’s reaction.

“I don’t mind,” Nozomi told her, smiling gently to show she meant it. “But can I know why?”

Eli smiled back a little hesitantly. Nozomi could clearly read the relief in her eyes. “I didn’t want you to see it. It’s been finished for a long time now - well, I still add to it every now and then, but nothing big. I could have shown it to you the day you arrived,” she confessed.

“I love it.” Nozomi stretched, enjoying the lazy pull of her muscles, then gestured widely at the garden with open arms. “It’s beautifully done. To tell the truth, I didn’t realise they weren’t real for a few seconds.”

Eli beamed. Nozomi felt herself grin at Eli’s obvious pride. The more time the other god spent around Nozomi, the freer she became with her emotions, and it was… nice, to see Eli smile and know she was the reason for it. The beam shrank, sliding down to a self-conscious smile.

“I didn’t want you to see it because I thought you might think it wasn’t good enough.”

Nozomi’s smile dropped. “I would never,” she found herself saying quickly, trying to wipe the thought from Eli’s mind. “How could it be not good enough?”

Eli shrugged. “It’s been a while since I’ve actually seen a flower. I wasn’t sure if what I remembered was accurate enough.” She gestured at the tree and said, with a touch of sardonic humour, “I just kind of guessed what the tree trunk would look like.”

Nozomi couldn’t help the snort of laughter. “It’s pretty accurate, don’t worry,” she said. “They’re usually a bit rougher than they look, but you got the colour, the shape and the surface right. Your memory’s good enough to fool me, Eli.”

Eli started at the sound of her name, and Nozomi noticed. She said, half just to test, “Not to pry or anything, Eli,” and another small reaction from Eli, “but are you actually comfortable with my calling you that?”

“… it’s just been a while since I’ve had anyone new call me that,” Eli admitted, leaning back with a sigh.

Nozomi took a guess. “About as long as the time since you’ve seen flowers?”

Hanayo didn’t like to talk about the Titans, but Nozomi knew enough. Hades, eldest-born, was eaten alive by Cronus, along with the other gods; Zeus freed them all and they waged war for ten years against first the Titans, then the Giants. And then, with the drawing of the lots, Hades was doomed to darkness once again, bound alone to her domain.

Eli shrugged.

Immediately, Nozomi had to resist the urge to cringe. She shouldn’t have said anything. Eli must hate the reminder that she was trapped underground by her duty - oh, Nozomi was trapped too, but she would be able to return, once the other gods arrived. Eli would be left behind. Eli would be here forever.

Her mouth opened, then closed. “I’m sorry,” she murmured in the end, feeling wholly insufficient.

“What for?” asked Eli, giving Nozomi the now-familiar quizzical look, eyebrows raised, but at least she was smiling. She wasn’t hurt. The clench of guilt in Nozomi’s belly loosened its grip, and Nozomi managed her own smile back.

Still feeling the need to reassure Eli, Nozomi slid off the bench, kneeling beside one of the spiral-beds. “They look very familiar,” she said lightly. “Narcissi? I don’t see them much around my home.”

“They were one of the few I got a close look at before I left, so there’s a lot of them here,” Eli explained with a chuckle. It died and her smile fell away. “Wait, Nozomi, don’t - ”

Nozomi hissed in pain and pulled her hand back. The fingers she’d tried to trace a petal with were bleeding, fine lines scored by the deceptively sharp petals. Eli leapt from the bench and dropped to her knees beside Nozomi, grabbing her hand. “I didn’t smooth all the edges,” she said, a little frantic as she examined Nozomi’s hand. “I’m sorry, I forgot to tell you - I never bothered since I already knew and I rarely touched them - ”

“It’s okay, really!” The stinging was mild, and didn’t bother Nozomi that much, though it irritated her that she’d only just gotten the Styx-incident bandages off. Drops of ichor slid along the lines in her palm and dripped off her wristbone as Eli tilted her hand this way and that, inspecting the damage. Nozomi repeated, “It’s okay. I’ll be fine in a few days. More importantly, I got blood on your… flower… ”

They looked at the flower Nozomi had touched.

The real, soft, green and white flower with the faintest hint of a sweet scent.

“Huh,” Nozomi said numbly. “That’s new.”

“Yes, that wasn’t there before,” Eli agreed.

They looked at the flowers beneath them.

Where a drop of golden ichor fell on a flower, the drop sank in seamlessly. With a flicker of colour, the glass softened, transforming in seconds into a normal, real flower. Nozomi tapped one gently with her uninjured hand. It quivered under her touch the way glass never could have.

“Your hand,” Eli said, drawing Nozomi’s attention. The lines in her fingers were sealing, one by one, until all that was left was beads of gold left clinging to her fingertips.

Nozomi held her hand up and flexed it twice. “My magic,” she whispered.

It was back. She could feel it, now that it had shown itself, but not the familiar trickle of power she was used to. This was new. Transforming glass to plant had never been in her small repertoire; neither had healing injuries in seconds rather than minutes.

“You _are_ a goddess,” Eli said, marvel in her voice as she touched the newly-made flower, mouth open. There was something strange in the way she turned and looked at Nozomi - like the unfurling of hope in her face. Then she gasped like she’d just been hit in the stomach.

“What? What’s wrong?” Nozomi asked worriedly.

“You’re Persephone.” She was even paler than usual, which was saying something.

“Ye-es?”

“I’ve been calling you by your personal name all this time without asking,” Eli breathed, sounding absolutely mortified. She buried her face in one hand and made a pleading gesture with the other. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. And I treated you like a mortal, gods above - ”

Nozomi couldn’t help it; she laughed. Eli peered through her fingers apprehensively. “You can call me anything you like,” Nozomi reassured her, still giggling, when an idea struck her. “… Elichi.”

“I’m sorry?”

“It’s a nickname!” Nozomi grinned at Eli, undeterred by her nonplussed look. “If my calling you Eli makes you feel weird, then I’ll just call you something else. That’s fine by you, right?”

Eli stared for a moment, then laughed softly, shaking her head in resignation. “I’ve never met anyone like you before, Nozomi.”

“I hope that’s in a good way.”

“It is, don’t worry.” They kept grinning at each other, a little too big and a little ridiculous, in their new understanding. Then Eli made a strange expression. “Uh, Nozomi? I don’t know how to look after a real garden.”

“Don’t worry, Elichi,” said Nozomi, waving her hand. New magic thrilled through her veins, potent and comforting. “I do.”

* * *

 “…But to return, and view the cheerful skies, / in this the task and mighty labor lies.” - Virgil, _The Aeneid._


	2. Act II

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Nozomi pats a surprising amount of animals, yells a lot, and gets the Ancient Greek equivalent of mail.

“…There is the heat of love, the pulsing rush of Longing, the lover’s whisper, irresistible - magic to make the sanest man go mad.” - Homer, _The Iliad_

* * *

 

Time passed strangely in the Underworld. The days and nights ran steadily, as far as Nozomi could tell by the scattered clocks and hourglasses, but at the same time, her internal clock protested the idea that a week had only been a week, or that she had only woken up three hours ago, or that it had been less than a day since the last time she saw Eli, and so on.

(The last one may have had more to do with how she craved the other’s company than it had with the actual passage of time.)

She hadn’t wanted to leave the palace since the trip to the Fields of Asphodel. Instead, the garden and her newfound power occupied her for hours at a time; some days, Nozomi went straight from bed to garden and back again, trying to catch every sunset. She almost never made it to sunrise. She slept the whole night through, and sometimes found herself nodding off halfway through the day, drowsy half her waking hours.

“Maybe it’s because you’re getting used to using your new magic, and it’s tiring you out,” Eli had said. Since the garden incident, Eli had sought out Nozomi’s company on her own. It wasn’t uncommon for them to gather in the garden or in Eli’s latest building project, talking about nothing important. Eli drank in Nozomi’s stories of the surface hungrily, and day by day, offered more on the Underworld’s secrets. Other times, simply basking in the comfort of another living person’s presence was enough.

“Maybe,” Nozomi had agreed. It was as good an explanation as any.

There wasn’t a routine - Eli’s haphazard work schedule, as she nicknamed her godly duties, didn’t allow for one. All the same, life in the Underworld was predictable, unchanging, lulling Nozomi into complacency. There was time spent with Eli, and time spent alone, and nobody else.

Which was probably why when Nozomi turned the corner and collided with a short person, her first and most ridiculous thought was ’ _wow, Elichi’s gotten a lot smaller_.’

“Oh!” the person said, blue eyes round as they stumbled back, “Sorry,” and their high child’s voice couldn’t possibly be Eli’s, and Nozomi found herself staring wordlessly at the newcomer.

Newcomer. In the Underworld. That wasn’t a barely-held together wisp of a dead spirit.

In the time it took for Nozomi to connect the dots, Eli appeared out of nowhere with a delighted cry, and the newcomer launched themselves in a hug at Eli. Eli laughed and wrapped her own arms around the smaller god (since there was nothing else they could be), spinning them in a whirlwind of bright and pale blonde hair before settling them back on their feet.

“It’s so good to see you again, Eli!” the small god said, squeezing a few more hug wrinkles into Eli’s neatly pressed robes before releasing her. They leaned back, mirroring Eli’s wide smile. “You haven’t changed at all in the past… how long has it been? Three months?”

“Three years, more like,” Eli said, straightening the god’s clothes affectionately. The small god made a face.

“I’ll get the time right one of these days,” they promised, then turned back to Nozomi, tugging on Eli’s hand. “Hello - who’s this?”

Nozomi quickly clamped her open mouth shut. Already making a fool of herself in front of the new god.

Eli chuckled a little nervously as she introduced them. “This is N- Persephone, the goddess of nature. And this is, uh, Thanatos, goddess of death. And also Hypnos, goddess of sleep. It’s complicated.”

More opportunities for Nozomi to put her foot in her mouth, especially if Thanatos-Hypnos was as formal as Eli had been. Nozomi nodded in greeting, offering a smile and opting to try to avoid addressing the goddess by any name at all. “It’s nice to meet you.”

“It’s nice to meet you too!” Thanatos-Hypnos smiled sweetly up at Nozomi. “You can call me Alisa.”

That was quick.

Nozomi laughed in surprise, and Alisa joined in. “Did my sister try to brush you off?” she said knowingly, squeezing Eli’s hand in gentle admonition. Eli reddened and huffed, looking away.

“She didn’t last long,” Nozomi said in a conspiratorial tone, and Alisa watched, openly impressed, as Eli reddened further and scrunched her face at her tormentors. “If I call you Alisa, then you should call me Nozomi too.”

“Of course.” There was a sort of childish innocence in the way Alisa so easily broke past the delicate personal spaces of a first meeting, grabbing Eli and Nozomi’s hands as she said, “Let’s go? I want to know how you came down here, Nozomi. And I want to see what’s new here – there’s always something new.”

They ended up in a living room, Alisa contently wrapped in blankets and curled against Eli’s side. Nozomi took the armchair across from them, hugging a cushion. It felt very domestic for a situation in which three gods were about to discuss moving one of them from death to life.

This was it. If Alisa could take Nozomi back, she and Eli would part ways here. The realisation was like a jolt of static electricity; Nozomi unconsciously tightened her grip on the cushion. Somehow, she doubted that she would be able to pop down to the Underworld for a quick visit every now and then.

Was she prepared to end it here? There were so many more things she wanted to learn about Eli, so many things she wanted to do together. But Hanayo might need her help - and she did miss the surface a little. She should be overjoyed that her departure was near at hand, and yet…

“Nozomi?” Eli said at the long pause, giving her a quizzical-concerned look. Alisa’s eyes flicked up to Eli’s face. Her eyebrows rose slightly.

Shaken out of her reverie, Nozomi quickly started recounting her misadventure. Alisa listened to Nozomi’s story in silence, only nodding to prompt her; Eli slid in little details here and there when Nozomi paused for breath.

“And that’s how it is,” Eli finished with a sigh. “I can’t leave the Underworld, so I can’t send her back. Alisa, can you..?”

Alisa was shaking her head even before Eli finished speaking. “No,” she said with an apologetic grimace at Nozomi’s falling face. “My duty is to collect the souls of the dead and lead them down to the Underworld, where Eli looks after them, but it’s a one-way trip. The Underworld wouldn’t let me bring them back up.”

Nozomi was suddenly too aware of the invisible weight of the miles of dense rock above them pressing down. “You say that like the Underworld’s alive.”

Eli said grimly, "There are rules older than I. Ever since the first mortal beings, ever since there was death, the land of the dead has existed. I just put order to it. Anyone and anything is allowed in, but almost nothing is allowed out.”

A thought occurred to Nozomi. “Can’t you just… reopen the tunnel I came down? I have my powers back, so I should be able to climb back out by myself. You don’t leave your domain, and I can come and go easily.”

“The Underworld isn’t just somewhere under the Earth’s skin - it’s another world. You fell through a crack in the ground and a rift in the space between our worlds at the same time. There are smaller tears everywhere, but it’s my job to try to keep them closed. Even if I reopened the tunnel, I couldn’t reopen the rift without trespassing on Poseidon’s territory.”

The silence after Eli’s explanation dragged by as Nozomi struggled to keep the strange mixture of relief and resignation off her face. So she was staying. As much as she valued her own free will, for once, Nozomi was almost glad she had no choice.

Mistaking her quiet for distress, Eli quickly added, “But it won’t be forever. I’m sure Hermes will be able to send you back. Don’t worry, Nozomi.”

“It’s alright,” Nozomi said, summoning a cheerful smile. “I don’t mind waiting, not with such good company.” Eli’s jaw slammed shut on her next encouraging comment. Her gaze caught by Eli’s, Nozomi didn’t notice Alisa looking back and forth between them until she broke in.

“Perks of immortality include patience,” Alisa said wisely, the impish twinkle in her eyes belying her tone. Eli leapt on her suggestion.

“Exactly! The days will pass so fast, you’ll be back before you knew it.” Eli’s eagerness to keep Nozomi’s supposedly low spirits up shone through, warmer than the sun, and Nozomi’s smile came easier at Eli’s hopeful face.

Before she could say anything, though, Alisa wriggled free of her blankets and jumped up from the couch. “I know what will cheer you up! Eli, have you shown her the horses?”

Nozomi’s ears pricked up. “The horses?” she said, excitement creeping into her tone.

“She won’t want to see the horses,” Eli said quickly, hopeful face collapsing into alarm. “Alisa, you know how they are - ”

“I knew you wouldn’t have! Adorable, that’s how they are. Do you want to see them?” the last bit addressed to Nozomi, accompanied by a winning grin and a hand held out.

There was no refusing that - or the promise of horses, for the matter. “Elichi, how could you keep this from me?” Nozomi said with mock indignation as she took Alisa’s eager hand.

Eli just shook her head despairingly. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you,” she muttered as she stood. Suddenly, her head tipped to the side and she frowned, eyes distant.

“Work calls?” said Nozomi, who had seen this often enough.

“It never ends,” Eli said ruefully. “I’ll find you two later, yes?”

“We’ll be fine, don’t worry. Come on, Nozomi!”

Nozomi laughed as Alisa towed them away, waving goodbye over her shoulder to Eli as she went.

They passed under the shadow of the door’s threshold. The darkness seemed to well up out of the floor in an instant, covering Nozomi’s sight; in her mind’s eye, Alisa thrummed with summoned magical energy.

It felt like willingly walking into nothingness. Her eyelids slammed shut instinctively, and she tensed, but there was no impact. A few steps later, Alisa came to a halt, patting Nozomi’s shoulder questioningly. “Nozomi? We’re here, are you okay?”

Nozomi cracked one eye open. Then both shot open in surprise as she took in the wide field before them, ringed by a crumbling fence. “This is not the palace,” she said.

“Oh,” Alisa said, covering her mouth. “I’m sorry, I forgot to warn you. You’ve seen Eli travel with her magic? Mine just works with shadows instead of portals.”

Nozomi just needed a moment to get her heartrate back down. “It must be good for hide and seek,” she quipped, breathless, and was rewarded with a giggle.

“Come on, the horses are coming!”

Little black shapes appeared at the far edge of the field, racing towards them, plumes of dust rising in their wake. Nozomi followed Alisa over to the fence, her steps slowing as the horses became more clear. The horses came to a stop and bent their long necks to nose at a laughing Alisa.

Skin and bone. The horses’ black hides were stretched over stark ribs, their eyes tiny blue flames sunken deep into their sockets. When one arched its neck and whuffed, ruffling Alisa’s hair, Nozomi could clearly see every jut of its neck-bones. She’d seen dead horses looking better than these skeletal creatures.

One horse raised its head and rolled its fiery eyes in Nozomi’s direction. She balked - but it tossed its head, and whinnied, high and inquisitive. It was quintessential equine and oh so familiar.

“They don’t bite,” Alisa said, watching Nozomi’s reaction. “Actually, they don’t eat at all, so don’t worry.”

Taking Alisa’s word, Nozomi raised one hesitant hand and laid it on the proffered nose. It was surprisingly soft and warm despite its skinniness. The emaciated horse snorted under her palm, then shoved its entire head against Nozomi, rubbing its forehead vigorously as if her shoulder were a scratching pole. Nozomi stumbled sideways in startled laughter.

“You’re just a big softie,” Nozomi cooed, rubbing the horse’s emaciated neck, then its nose as it nickered contently.

Alisa’s face lit up. “Do you like them?”

“How could I not?” Nozomi moved to pay attention to the other three who were jostling for her attention, noses stretched out hopefully for pats. “Do they have names?”

“Orphnaeus, Aethon, Nyctaeus, Alastor,” Alisa listed off as she pointed to each. Nozomi mouthed each name as she patted them. “They used to pull Eli’s chariot, back when she moved around on the surface. Now they’re retired and spoilt. So much for being Hades’ unparalleled war horses.”

Aethon snorted and slowly tilted sideways, shoulder pressed against Alisa’s hands, and Alisa smacked him lightly in retaliation. “Hey, I’m smaller than you, don’t lean on me!”

Eventually, the horses got bored and wandered away across the field, leaving only Nyctaeus, the largest of all. He was content to stand next to Nozomi, head drooping in a doze. Alisa rubbed his withers comfortingly, barely tall enough to reach.

Breaking the silence, Alisa said, “You didn’t really need cheering up, did you?”

Nozomi started. Nyctaeus’ head came up a little, and Alisa made quiet sounds at him, lulling him back down. Sheepish, Nozomi said, “Was I that obvious?”

“Not very. But Eli didn’t notice, don’t worry.”

“…If you knew, then why did you bring me out here? Apart from to meet the horses, I mean, I really appreciate that.”

“I wanted to get to know you better.” Alisa looked over Nyctaeus’ back and smiled at Nozomi’s guarded face on the other side. “Don’t worry, don’t worry! I like you a lot. It’s just that as the older sibling, I needed to know for myself if Eli will be alright.”

Nozomi stared blankly. “Did you just say you’re older than Eli?”

“I’m not really Eli’s sister,” Alisa said, giving Nyctaeus’ ribs one last firm pat and moving around his side so she could speak directly to Nozomi. “I’m a goddess, but I’m not _your_ kind of goddess - I was born straight from the primordial deities, not the Titans. If anything, I’m more like Eli’s… first cousin twice removed. Or something like that. I just sleep a lot more as Hypnos, and she sleeps so little, she’s such a workaholic, so she’s probably older than me in terms of time spent conscious.”

External appearances were sneaky. Nozomi berated herself silently for forgetting that gods weren’t always what they seemed to be. But that wasn’t the only alarming thing Alisa had so casually said; sifting back through the barrage of information, Nozomi asked carefully, “What did you mean by Eli being alright?”

Alisa gestured loosely at their surroundings. “Eli doesn’t exactly have a lot of friends. There’s Hermes, but she can’t come often when half of Olympus needs her help at any moment. And there’s me. I used to fetch souls physically, but when the mortals kept increasing, there were too many deaths to handle. Now I do it in my dreams, where I can be everywhere at once.

"But that means I’m asleep most of the time, and Eli’s alone for months, maybe years.” Alisa made a face. “I lose track of time a lot.”

“So she doesn’t meet new people a lot, which is why you’re investigating me,” Nozomi guessed.

“No,” Alisa said. She gave Nozomi a piercing look, startlingly similar to her sister’s. “I’m investigating you because from what I’ve seen, she likes you a lot. She’s opened up to you. And that means you could hurt her.”

For a moment, Nozomi felt an unbearably cold chill from Alisa’s stare - the foreignness of mortality pressing down on her immortal consciousness. It must have shown on her face, as Alisa winced and looked stricken. The feeling receded and Nozomi stood straight again. Before Alisa could apologise, and before she could let herself feel intimidated, Nozomi blurted out, “I like her a lot too.”

Alisa’s open mouth closed. Then she smiled, even brighter than when she had when Nozomi fawned over the horses. “I thought so!”

One of Nozomi’s hands was caught up in both of Alisa’s, and the small goddess leaned forward. “Let me give you some advice, Nozomi,” said Alisa, looking very determined. “I know I said patience is a perk of immortality, but if there’s one thing I’ve learnt from watching mortals’ lives end, it’s that we always have less time than we think we do.”

Nozomi thought of the way her stomach had dropped when she thought she was going home. “I think I understand,” she agreed.

Alisa nodded firmly. “You’ve already been trying to get closer to her, haven’t you? And she just brushes you off sometimes?”

She was _trying_. “I don’t think she even realises what I mean half the time,” Nozomi said with the air of a confession. Alisa certainly knew her sister well. Combined with an Eli-esque straightforwardness and Alisa’s determination for the as yet non-existent relationship to succeed, that knowledge was a force to be reckoned with.

It certainly made for excellent wing-womaning.

“Eli’s stubborn and noble, even when she doesn’t need to be. She probably thinks it would be taking advantage of you if she tried to be closer to you while you’re in her domain. Subtlety’s lost on her. If you don’t push, you won’t get anywhere, okay?”

“You’re saying I have to court her.” A quiet thrill rose in Nozomi from just saying the words; she tried to ignore the heat in her cheeks.

“I’m saying you have to court her,” Alisa repeated with another firm nod. “It’ll take her a while to figure it out, since she’s not very good at this sort of thing, but you can do it!”

It was nice to know someone had her back. Fighting back a smile, Nozomi nodded back. “I’ll do my best,” she promised - and despite the ridiculousness of Hades’ sibling giving her wooing advice in a field of undead horses, she meant it.

Letting go of Nozomi’s hand, Alisa skipped back a few steps, still beaming. “I’m not sure when I’ll see you around, but I’ll do my best to help! Now, I have to go check up on some other things, but do you want me to take you back first, or do you want to walk?”

“I’ll walk,” Nozomi said, pointing at one of Eli’s ubiquitous signposts. “Thanks, Alisa.” Alisa nodded and waved her fingers in a goodbye; Nozomi returned it. Then Alisa stepped back into the shadow of the fences and was gone.

Nyctaeus rumbled quietly, and Nozomi gave him one last pat before climbing over the fence the mundane way. Her walk back was filled with half-formed schemes and ideas on what she could say to Eli.

Time was short. If Eli was going to be too stupidly self-sacrificing to push for what she wanted, well, Nozomi had never been scared of a little hard work.

* * *

“Alisa said that you liked the horses,” was the first thing out of Eli’s mouth when she found Nozomi. Nozomi cast a quick look over Eli - the ever-present key, a tunic that looked like it had seen better days, sandals practically falling apart, a bundle of… firewood under her arm? Her eyes were bright with barely contained excitement.

“The horses were wonderful, and I wish I could have met them earlier,” Nozomi said, giving Eli an exaggerated frown.

“Sorry,” Eli said, looking bashful. “I thought you wouldn’t like them, what with the, uh, undead-ness.”

“I remember hearing something like this before. Hmm, what was it again? A garden I probably wouldn’t like?” In quick retaliation, Eli smacked Nozomi’s shoulder lightly, laughing.

“Okay, I’ve learnt my lesson,” Eli said. She swept into a mock-gallant bow, free hand outstretched for Nozomi to take; despite knowing it was all just part of the back-and-forth teasing, Nozomi’s heart thudded against her ribcage at Eli’s bowed head.  "In penance, allow me to show you more things you wouldn’t like, oh wise goddess.“

"My, my! What an honor to be escorted by one so charming.” Eli jerked straight up when Nozomi placed her hand in Eli’s, interlacing their fingers and abandoning a formal escort in favour of letting their hands swing between them. Nozomi’s thumb rubbed once, twice over the fine bones on the back of her hand. At Eli’s slack-jawed expression, Nozomi only smiled innocently and said, “Lead on, Elichi. I’m looking forward to it.”

Eli was silent the entire short walk, but she didn’t let go.

They emerged from the portal onto a crossroads, where the widest road split into branches. Nozomi looked down the widest road; in the distance was an enormous gate, a replica of the one in front of Hades’ palace. Eli pointed towards the gate with their joined hands. “The River Styx is on the other side,” she said. “That’s where I found you. This is where the dead disembark.”

Sure enough, when Nozomi relaxed and let her eyes unfocus, the shades swam into vision just as they had when she had first arrived. They drifted down the main road, most joining the endless stream towards the sign labeled ‘Fields of Asphodel’.

One wavered, then slowly began to move against the steady flow of the dead, back towards the gate.

“Should you be worried?” Nozomi asked, pointing the shade out. Eli just shook her head with a smile and began to follow, the other shades parting before them.

What Nozomi had taken to be simply the gates’ shadow moved. Slowly, the blackness leaned forward towards the approaching shade, until the outline of an enormous canine head could be seen. Then two. Then three.

Nozomi could feel Eli’s eyes on her, waiting for her reaction.

The shade only came up to the three-headed dog’s shoulders; one shaggy head lowered to eye level. The other two continued to watch the dead coming up the stairs and through the gate. With a soft whuff, the first head nosed the still shade gently, nudging little by little until the shade slowly turned back round.

“Some souls cling to life harder than others,” Eli murmured as the shade drifted past them. “Cerberus is my guardian. He makes sure no one tries to cross back over.”

“You have a three-headed dog,” Nozomi said. One day, she would stop being surprised at the strange fauna the Underworld seemed to contain.

Uncertainly, Eli said, “Yes? He’s very gentle, though. I just need to play with him every now and then, or he gets bored and starts chewing up the gate - ”

The heads had spotted them. Letting out several joyous barks, each loud as a falling tree, Cerberus’ tail began sweeping from side to side. A faint breeze ruffled Nozomi’s hair.

“He’s so _big_ ,” she said in awe, approaching despite her initial stunned disbelief. Three heads locked on to her. Two let out whines, stretching their necks towards her pitifully, while the third took in giant gulping sniffs through flared nostrils. Nozomi stretched out her hand in welcome and was immediately covered in three cold, wet noses.

“Cerberus! Down, boy!” Eli’s panicked order was entirely unheard, but Nozomi couldn’t care less as she giggled madly. Cerberus was eagerly nosing at her pockets, then undeterred by the lack of treats, engrossed in thoroughly bathing Nozomi’s arms and face with three giant puppy tongues.

Only three of Eli’s sticks waved in the air caught his attention. “Cerberus, fetch!” Eli shouted as she hurled the sticks. Ears pricked up, Cerberus bounded after them, leaving Nozomi hiccupping with ticklish laughter.

“Oh, gods above, he’s so gross and I love him,” she laughed, swiping hellhound drool out of her eyes. Eli wrapped a dry corner of her tunic around her hand and helped.

“I’m so sorry,” Eli said helplessly. “He hasn’t met anyone new in so long, I forgot he liked to do that. Are you okay?”

“I might need some new clothes.” They looked at each other, then burst into laughter. “What other pets are you keeping from me, Elichi?” Nozomi wheezed. “Is there an aviary hidden somewhere? Do you keep cats in your bedroom? Do they have three tails?”

“No, they’re winged cats. I saved the best for last.” Nozomi’s half-convinced face led Eli into another bout of laughter. In revenge, Nozomi advanced on her, arms spread and ready to give her a sticky, fur-and-drool covered hug - but Eli only put up the barest tokens of resistance.

“I wear old clothes for a reason when I visit, you know,” Eli said through a grin and a scrunched-up nose. “I’ve done this before. I came prepared. You can’t hurt me!”

Nozomi smirked and smeared her wet fingers along the bridge of Eli’s nose, producing a truly disgusted look. “Oh? Then you won’t mind if I share some of this mess, will you, Elichi?”

“Alright, I’ve changed my mind, get off - eugh, I surrender!”

In their squirming, they had ended up sitting on the road, Nozomi practically kneeling in Eli’s lap as she clung on with all her might. At Eli’s surrender, Nozomi loosened her grip and leaned back. Her jaw ached from smiling.

They both stilled as they took in their position. Eli’s eyes flicked down once, then up again, drawn to Nozomi’s face inches away like a moth to a flame. This close, Nozomi could see the bob in her throat as Eli swallowed. Heart in her throat, Nozomi leaned in the tiniest bit. Eli didn’t lean away.

Then Cerberus came bounding back in his full three-headed glory, swinging his sticks to and fro with great enthusiasm, and Eli and Nozomi dived apart to avoid being clobbered by his fetch toys.

He dropped the sticks unceremoniously at Eli’s feet and sat with a loud thump of his haunches hitting the ground. With a fond yet exasperated sigh, Eli threw the sticks again, and Cerberus tore after them as if fetch were his sole purpose in life. “He’s actually not done growing yet,” Eli said.

Nozomi accepted the ruined moment with grace. There would be plenty of other chances, after all. She asked, “How big will he be?”

“I’m… not sure if there’s an upper limit, actually.”

“Ah,” Nozomi said. “Does he eat? I imagine that would be difficult to keep up with.”

Eli made another disgusted face. “He eats monsters from Tartarus, sometimes, if I let him. Even though he doesn’t need to.”

“Which would explain the smell,” Nozomi quipped, to Eli’s amusement.

By the end of the day, Cerberus’ games of fetch-the-stick and make-the-goddess-give-pets left Nozomi exhausted but radiant with happiness. Her bones ached; she and Eli were both liberally coated in hellhound fur.

Cerberus let out a long, low whine as they waved goodbye, but obediently took up his post by the gate. The dead streamed by endless in his shadow.

Eli stretched, the pop of her joints faintly audible; Nozomi followed suit and finished up with an enormous yawn she barely covered.

“Just one more thing I want to show you,” Eli said, already sketching the portal. When the blue lines joined and the portal opened, she stepped to the side, expectant, waiting for Nozomi to enter.

Instead, Nozomi took Eli’s hand with all the ease of breathing and smiled innocently at her stunned expression. “Something wrong, Elichi?” she said.

“N-nothing.” Eli cleared her throat needlessly. “Uh, shall we?”

The portal widened with a quick gesture to allow two people through side by side, and they stepped in.

Nozomi squinted. Through the middle of the blue-lit underground chamber ran a wide, shallow stream, water swirling lazily from one end to the other. Wide smoothed stone steps led down into the water. Steam lay thick in the air, caressing Nozomi’s face with warm eddies of air as she turned her head to take the room in.

“One of my bigger projects,” Eli explained. “I did some terraforming - I channelled a very small amount of water from the main rivers with a stream of normal water. Phlegethon for heat, Lethe for forgetting your fatigue. It’s perfectly safe even for a mortal, I promise.”

“If this is what I think it is, I could kiss you,” Nozomi told her. Eli flushed (hopefully not just from the heat).

“A hot bath? Yes? I thought you would have found it by now, to be honest, since it’s just under the palace and the exit comes out near - ”

“Elichi.” Nozomi dropped Eli’s hand and began fumbling at the ties of her slimy clothes. “Less talking, more stripping.”

Eli sucked in a sharp whistling breath, eyes round. “E-excuse me?”

“I’m thinking that, after playing with your hellhound, I’m not going to turn down a hot bath.” Biting back the rising urge to giggle, Nozomi turned to Eli, batting coquettish eyelashes and letting her voice drop to a sultry alto. “Aren’t you going to join me?”

Eli blinked rapidly. Oh, this was even more fun than Nozomi had expected. In a voice an octave higher than she usually used, Eli squeaked, “I-I-I’m going to find you new clothes sorry Nozomi maybe another time!”

“Come back soon!” Nozomi said cheerily, letting fabric slip down her shoulders. Eli spluttered something that might have been a farewell before she spun like a marionette, nearly tripped over her own sandals, and stumbled to the door. She fled to the sound of Nozomi’s laughter.

* * *

The garden care routine went like this: in the morning, one watering of the flowers; during the day, pruning of the tree, and work on transforming the rest of the garden into real, living flora; and at night, one more watering of the flowers. It was much easier than caring for surface plants, which fell prey to animals, insects and weather.

It still shouldn’t have come as a surprise when Nozomi found a wilted flower. Half-hidden beneath the tree’s growing shade, it had slowly wasted away without sunlight.

Wistful, she said to herself, “And I was doing such a good job too.” She sat down against the tree with a sigh, leaning against its rough trunk. It had been the second thing she brought to life immediately after her magic returned. Unlike the too-perfect glass narcissi that easily became what they represented, like a blank template, the mere idea of a tree, it had sculpted itself under Nozomi’s direction into a personal favourite. (Pomegranate flowers were lovely.)

Hanayo had never been able to resuscitate dead plants, only replace them with other new ones. There was no reason to think Nozomi would be any different.

Apart from the fact that, as far as her powers were concerned, the impossible had already happened.

Warmth pooled in her fingertips as she cupped the brown petals in her hands. The magic threaded through her hands, slowly stretching out like tree roots digging deep. Nozomi let out a shaky breath, took another in, held it.

Then the flower was straightening, colour soaking back into its petals as the stem stood upright once again. Death’s pallor left the small plant, forced out by Nozomi’s magic.

A bead of sweat slid down Nozomi’s temple. She made to put down the flower, but as if her effort had forced a hole in the mental dam of her power, the power streamed out unheeding. The flower grew and grew, its tiny frame shivering under the outpouring of life.

Nozomi found herself mumbling, “Stop, stop,” as she tried to rein it in, her head beginning to pound with a dull pain. But a chain reaction had been set off. There was nothing left but to let her magic run its course.

The narcissus finally stopped at its most vibrant life phase in full bloom. But that wasn’t enough. Nozomi watched, half-fearful and half-fascinated, as light coalesced between her glowing hands.

The spark of life lit, never to be put out.

When the light flared, and Nozomi blinked away the bright smears in her eyelids, in her hands rested a small bundle of flowers. The pressure in her head died away.

“Do not,” she said firmly to her hands, “do that again.”

Her magic didn’t respond, content to curl back up in the recesses of her consciousness.

With a relieved sigh, Nozomi turned the flowers over in her hands. Purple roses, their stems lightly thorned, surrounding the narcissus that was all Nozomi had wanted. They would never wilt or die - not plants made from pure divine magic.

Her repertoire seemed to be expanding by the day, and not entirely under her control. She felt like a mortal youth in the midst of growing pains.

“Well, what am I going to do with you?” Nozomi asked the roses. Predictably, they didn’t respond. She began casting about the garden, looking for a place they might grow well, when another idea occurred to her.

Weren’t flowers a commonly given gift in courting? And lavender roses, too. How appropriate.

She left them on the arm of Eli’s throne.

The next time Nozomi saw Eli, she was holding the bouquet delicately, as if afraid she would crush them. “Nozomi, thank you, they’re beautiful, but - I don’t know how to take care of them,” Eli confessed. “What do I have to do?”

Nozomi smiled, took one and beckoned. Eli obligingly leaned down. The rose, shorn of its thorns, tucked neatly into the strands of blonde hair behind Eli’s ear. “Flowers thrive best near beautiful people, so wear one every now and then and they’ll be fine,” she said with a wink. “Trust me, I’m a nature goddess. I know these things.”

“I have never heard something so outrageously incorrect,” said Eli, thoroughly embarrassed, but she made no move to remove the flower. Was it inappropriate to think that Eli looked good in Nozomi’s colour?

With a laugh, Nozomi conceded. “They’re magic, so you don’t need to do anything to take care of them. But you do look lovely with them.”

Eli considered this. Then she slowly separated another rose and reached towards Nozomi’s face. Instinctively, Nozomi closed her eyes as Eli’s hand approached; the rose stem slid without resistance into her braid. Then Eli pulled back. “Flowers thrive best near beautiful people, huh?” she said, a smile tugging at the corner of her lips.

Struck speechless for once, Nozomi stared as Eli waved goodbye.

(She couldn’t be outdone.)

* * *

After one last slow spin of inspection, Nozomi nodded in satisfaction. Everything was ready. The only thing missing was her key participant.

Nozomi cleared her throat and, feeling a little silly, said to the empty air, “Eli? Hades? Can you come here for a moment please?”

Then there was nothing left but to wait, and hope that wherever she was in her domain, Eli would hear her.

Nozomi didn’t have to wait long. Before a minute had passed, the telltale frisson of magic was in the air, and Eli stepped out, blue flames crackling around her fist. She looked around warily, then spotted Nozomi, safe and whole. Her shoulders dropped with released tension.

“I thought it was an emergency,” Eli breathed out as the flames winked out. She scratched her head, sheepish. “You never called for me before.”

The thought of Eli rushing to her aid curled warmly along her ribs. “Silly Elichi,” Nozomi said, unable to hold back the grin that seemed to appear every time she saw Eli. “I’m sorry for worrying you. But I’m not sorry for bringing you here.”

For the first time, Eli seemed to become aware of her surroundings. She surveyed the room with a creased brow. “Why are we in the ballroom?”

“To dance, of course. What else would you do in a ballroom?” Nozomi mustered her most winning smile. For all her bravado and preparation, now that Eli was standing in front of her, her nerves were starting to get the better of her. Unbidden, the image of Eli’s lonely dance swam behind her eyes. Could she match that?

“Me?” Eli seemed to be struggling. She shifted her weight from foot to foot. “With you?”

Now was not a good time to become acutely aware of her sweaty palms. “Only if you’d like,” Nozomi said.

“No, I’d love to! It’s just…” Eli fiddled with her key anxiously.

“Just?”

Eli ducked her head. In an almost ashamed mumble, she said, “Most of the dances I know are funeral dances.”

Ah, that was all. “I know,” Nozomi said. Knowing Eli wasn’t hesitating because she didn’t want to join Nozomi unraveled something tight and thorny in her chest.

“You - you know?” Eli said disbelievingly.

“I checked with Alisa first. Needed to pick out the right music, right?” Nozomi gave a self-deprecating laugh as she moved across the room to the golden lyre sitting on a stand against the wall. “Also, I needed to make sure I could actually dance the dances you know.”

According to Alisa, the instrument was a gift from one of the Olympian gods. Nozomi closed her eyes and laid her hand on the smooth body. In her mind, she called up every memory she had of the village songs she had heard from afar - the fast plucks of the lyre, the haunting tunes of the pipes. With a jolt, something like a spark passed between her palm and the cold surface of the lyre.

The strings shivered. Nozomi felt the dormant enchantments answer to the call of her magic, and the lyre came to life, the familiar music plucked straight from Nozomi’s mind. The sound of myriad instruments came forth as if an entire orchestra were contained in the lyre.

Nozomi stepped back. Imitating Eli from a week ago, she dipped down into a sprawling, lavish bow, extending her hand with a flourish. “Would Your Majesty the Underworld Queen care to dance with me?” she said with a cheeky grin and a wink.

Eli snorted with laughter and took Nozomi’s hand with exaggerated delicacy. “It would be an honour, Your… Your Divineness?”

“Works for me,” Nozomi said with a shrug, and led Eli onto the ballroom floor.

The first song was for celebrations - weddings, births, good harvests. The villagers Nozomi saw performed this dance so often that she knew the steps by heart. Nozomi stood an arm’s width from Eli’s side and showed her how to loop their arms, hands to shoulders. “Step, step, kick, step, down - up…”

The music sped up, from stately slowness to a cheerful, rolling beat. Their steps turned to hops; one or the other fell out of beat to giggles from the other, and more than once their feet tangled and set them stumbling against each other in an attempt to regain their balance.

But knowing they would fall only made them try harder, laughing breathlessly at each other’s antics, until both tumbled to the ground. “Again,” Eli demanded, a flush in her cheeks and a spark in her eyes. She bounced up, all springy long limbs, and pulled Nozomi to her feet.

They danced the same dance twice more, until Nozomi begged off a fourth try to show Eli other dances. Eli took to each one like a fish to water. Eli absorbed every scrap of Nozomi’s dancing know-how and spun it back out in never-ending vibrant movement; Nozomi was simply swept along for the exhilarating ride.

It was just as Nozomi’s calves began to burn that the music started to change. Instead of the drums and pan flutes Nozomi knew, the golden lyre played an unfamiliar melody on unfamiliar instruments.

“This isn’t music from this era,” Nozomi said, eyebrows rising. Eli smiled at her confusion.

“Death is timeless. Everything from everytime winds up here,” she said by way of vague explanation, and spun Nozomi into a new kind of breathlessness, feet stepping back and forth in one-two-three. “The mortals don’t know this one yet, but they will.”

Nozomi laughed, swept up in the smooth arcs of the new dance. “What happened to knowing only funeral dances?”

“Mostly, not only.” Eli twirled Nozomi, nearly fumbled their hands loose of their grip, but quickly recovered in time to set her hand back on Nozomi’s waist. She scrunched her face up at herself. “The others are two-people dances, and Alisa has two left feet, so you’re my first experimental subject, I’m afraid.”

“You’re doing a very good job for a first try, Elic- ” Nozomi’s last word trailed off in a squeak as Eli dropped both hands to her waist, gripped tightly, and lifted. Her hands flew to Eli’s shoulders. The momentum of their last turn took them through one more spin mid-air, Nozomi’s braid floating out behind her.

She was flying. Wind whistled in Nozomi’s face for the first time in weeks, a tiny zephyr of freedom held inside that enormous room finally let loose; Nozomi laughed with sheer delight, and in response, Eli lifted her again barely three steps after the first lift. Even after Nozomi’s feet settled on the ground, the weightless feeling stretched on, and she didn’t relinquish her tight hold on Eli.

The music slowed, and slowed some more, until they were less whirling around the room and more rotating in a small circle, orbiting a fixed point of attraction somewhere in the space between their ribs. Feet stepped lighter and lighter until they stood in the center of the room, swaying slowly. Eli’s hand was warm on Nozomi’s lower back. She watched Nozomi with a soft gaze, barely inches away. The tightness around her eyes read nervousness, yes, but there was warmth there too.

The music died away.

In her idlest moments, Nozomi sometimes thought of this: the timeless, silent moment; the liminal space of a relationship where anything and everything was possible. She had only to speak to rewrite their small world. For better or for worse, she never knew - but a hundred thousand branches of fate lay before them, dependent on her next words. It was like standing on the precipice of an abyss into which she couldn’t see.

Nozomi let herself fall.

“May I kiss you?” she whispered into the air between them. Eli blinked once; her long eyelashes were oddly enchanting. She opened her mouth, closed it, worried her lower lip with her teeth once. Nozomi watched, entranced. Her mouth curved into a small smile.

“Please,” Eli whispered back.

Eli’s lips were warm and soft and just a little dry. The first touch was the barest of brushes, close-mouthed and chaste; again, and again, until they were both pressing into it. Eli’s hands slid up to bracket Nozomi’s shoulders. Nozomi found her own hands cupped against the back of Eli’s head and cheek, fingers tangling in blonde strands. Her heart sang counterpart to the sweet sound of Eli’s soft breaths.

It wasn’t what Nozomi had imagined in the protective cover of the dark - but oh, reality was so much better.

* * *

Nothing changed, and everything changed. They still kept the same meetings, and talked about the same topics, and went to the same places. But now there was just more, and _different_ \- kisses and hugs and enough loving gazes to make Nozomi’s head spin, drunk on happiness.

“I knew you had feelings for me,” Eli asserted later with a red face. “Well, I think I did. I’m mostly sure I knew. Probably.”

“Of course you did,” Nozomi said, more to see Eli’s reaction than out of actual disbelief. Eli didn’t disappoint.

“I really did!” She gave an astonishingly childish pout, and Nozomi had to struggle not to reach over and pat Eli’s head. Entirely too adorable. “I just didn’t want to - to inconvenience you, or pressure you, or - ”

Instead, Nozomi leaned over and dropped a quick kiss on Eli’s cheek. (What a world, where she could do that whenever she wanted.) Eli’s words trailed off into stammers, and she clamped her mouth shut, still pouting at Nozomi. “I believe you, so it’s time for you to believe something, too.”

“What?” Eli asked, wary of another ambush of affection.

Nozomi smiled and took Eli’s hand in hers. “I would never let you inconvenience me or pressure me without my wanting to, so you may as well tell me everything you want to next time, okay?”

Eli looked at Nozomi with wide round eyes. Insistent, Nozomi shook their joined hands and repeated, “Okay? No more secrets, Elichi. Or at least none that you don’t want to keep.”

“Okay,” Eli said in a daze. Then she dropped her head into her free hand with a helpless laugh. “I can’t believe this…”

“What’s wrong?”

“I’m completely defenseless against you, Nozomi,” Eli admitted. And it was Nozomi’s turn to stare at Eli’s blindingly open face, feeling heat crawl across her own cheeks.

Halfheartedly, Nozomi pushed Eli’s shoulder. Eli swayed agreeably. “Don’t say embarrassing things like that.”

“You’re one to talk,” Eli teased back.

Nozomi puffed her cheeks indignantly. In a mock-severe voice, she began, “I’m not sure I like this new tone of yours, Miss Hades - ” before her words were cut off in a yawn. Eli laughed and returned the cheek kiss.

“Why don’t you stay here for the night? It’s late.” Eli glanced critically at Nozomi’s drooping eyelids. “And you’re tired.”

“But this is your bedroom,” Nozomi said, the protest rising automatically. To be truthful, she had found the room a while ago during her Great Exploration of the Underworld in her first few weeks. She just hadn’t pegged the sparsely decorated, light-filled room as the Underworld Queen’s bedroom.

To her slow surprise, Eli immediately started stammering. “Not - not like that! Nothing inappropriate. I just thought you might want to sleep with me - _platonically_ \- since I’d really like to sleep with you, _platonically_ , alright this was a bad idea, I’m sorry Nozomi I - ”

“I wasn’t even thinking about that,” Nozomi said, bemused. But she was quick to give Eli a sly grin. “But I’m flattered to know you have. Tell me more, won’t you, Elichi?”

Eli scrunched down in her seat. “I just thought it would be nice if we could spend some more time together, since I’m always busy and I keep ignoring you,” she mumbled into the fabric bunching up around her chin. Her ears were red.

Nozomi could actually feel her playful resolve melting like mountain ice left out in the sun too long. “That does sound nice,” she agreed. She tugged lightly at Eli’s collar until she could lean in and properly kiss Eli.

Eli leaned up eagerly into the kiss. Her hands settled on Nozomi’s shoulderblades, holding her close; as Nozomi had discovered, Eli loved physical affection, and took every chance given to indulge.

And sometimes, she lost track of herself - like when her hands started wandering south of Nozomi’s lower back.

Nozomi broke the kiss, trying to keep her breath calm, and tapped Eli’s nose to watch her go cross-eyed. “Hands,” she said with a small smile.

“Sorry,” Eli said bashfully, sliding her hands back up to a more respectable position.

Neither wanted to rush the relationship. It had only been a few weeks. They had time, enough time to draw out all the little moments and explore every nook and cranny in love. It was a first for both of them, after all.

In reward, Nozomi tilted their foreheads together and rubbed her nose against Eli’s. “You’re forgiven,” she said, pressing a smile against Eli’s upper lip. “Bed time?”

Eli’s eyes lit up. “Yes,” she said, eager as Cerberus presented with a new toy. Not waiting for Nozomi to react, she stood from her chair and swept Nozomi into her arms in the same movement.

“Hey!” Nozomi laughed, but let Eli carry her to the bed. Rare as it was, Nozomi was starting to catch more and more glimpses of Eli’s impulsive side. It was, frankly, adorable. (And incredibly appealing when Eli was using it to carry her about the place.)

Eli deposited her on one side of the bed, and quickly crossed over to the other side, just in time for Nozomi to pull the blankets back for both of them to slide under. Once wrapped up, Eli draped one arm over Nozomi’s waist. Nozomi sighed contently and pushed back into Eli’s warm hold.

She waited a moment, then two. “Ah… Elichi?”

“Hmm?”

“Not that I mind, but aren’t you going to douse the torches?”

“… I’m, uh. Sort of scared of the dark.”

“… How do you sleep decently?”

“Not well,” Eli admitted, burying her face obstinately in Nozomi’s curling hair. “But I wouldn’t sleep at all without the lights.”

Honestly, what was Nozomi going to do with her incredibly ridiculous, wonderful, and probably insomniac partner? Turning in Eli’s arms, she said, “Come here a second.”

“Wh - ” Eli found her head being tucked under Nozomi’s chin, blankets drawn up almost over their faces.

“It’s dark now, right?” Nozomi asked, patting the back of Eli’s head comfortingly. “Are you scared?”

“No,” Eli mumbled into Nozomi’s collarbone, equal parts embarrassment and awe.

“Then as long as I’m here, you can douse the torches and get a good night’s sleep?”

Eli said nothing. Then the blue flames died down, their torch sticks barely smouldering with a dim glow. Nozomi smiled.

Against Nozomi’s collarbone, Eli whispered, “Thank you.”

“And thank you,” Nozomi answered, bringing their tangled hands up to kiss Eli’s knuckles, heart full.

Neither stirred the whole night.

* * *

“Elichi, wake up.”

The ruler of the Underworld moaned loudly and wrapped all four limbs around Nozomi’s torso, burying her head in Nozomi’s chest. Nozomi snorted with laughter, the puff of air ruffling already mussed blonde hair. “Elichi, come on, it’s daytime.”

Another groan. Unwrapping one arm, Eli pulled her key loose of her clothes and waved it at the ceiling. The pale light faded throughout the room, shadows melting back into each other, until the room was blanketed in darkness again.

“Night time,” Eli mumbled. “Sleep.”

Nozomi gaped, incredulous. “You,” she said, “just made it dark just so you could cuddle. You just turned the light cycle of your domain backwards. To stay in bed.”

There was no response, only content snuggling.

“You little - ” Nozomi’s fingers dug into Eli’s flanks and Eli shrieked, wide awake in an instant. Nozomi rolled on top of her and set to with vigour. “Gross misuse of divine power, you brat - ”

“Stop, stop stopstop,” Eli wheezed, squirming helplessly under Nozomi’s relentless tickling. “Guilty! I’ll turn it back, ahaha, Nozomi _no_ \- ”

When Nozomi judged Eli sufficiently repentant, she released her. Eli rolled off the other side of the bed onto the floor with a soft thump. “She-devil,” came her petulant complaint from the floor. Nozomi crawled over the tangled bedsheets to peer down at her partner.

“Doesn’t it seem dark, Elichi?” Nozomi said, wiggling her fingers threateningly. Eli gulped. 'Sunrise’ quickly came once again.

“I couldn’t help it.” Eli made a face at Nozomi, who made an even more ridiculous one back. “It was just so comfortable…”

“There’s always tonight,” Nozomi pointed out. “And tomorrow night, and the night after.”

Eli looked at her. “That’s true,” she said. The softness in her voice set Nozomi’s nerves thrumming with quiet excitement.

To calm them, Nozomi pulled Eli up and sat her on the edge of the bed, back to Nozomi. Breathing was a little easier when she wasn’t pinned down by Eli’s gaze. “Pass me your hairties, won’t you, Elichi?”

Eli’s typical hairstyle was much easier than Nozomi’s braid. She combed her fingers through looped blonde strands until they fell straight as a waterfall down Eli’s back; Eli sighed and pressed back into the rhythmic touch. She gathered the hair into a single bundle and tied it carefully (“tighter, please - sorry, a little looser. That’s perfect…”). Finished, she patted Eli’s head.

Eli turned her head. “Thank you,” she said, eyes crinkling in a smile. She gently tugged on Nozomi’s collar until the other was close enough for a kiss. Nozomi nipped at her lip playfully.

“Time for you to go to work,” ordered Nozomi, not without regret. She pushed at Eli insistently until Eli sighed and gave up chasing after her mouth.

“Alright, alright…” Eli stood and flicked her hand, dressing herself in her formal black robes with a burst of magic that left blue smears across Nozomi’s vision. When Nozomi’s guard was down, Eli stole one more quick kiss. “I’ll see you later,” she said, half a question.

Nozomi nodded. “Have a good day!”

Even once Eli was gone, Nozomi was loathe to leave the comfortable bed. But she had plans of her own, too.

The garden she walked into wasn’t the same garden she’d found all those weeks ago. Gone was the artificial glimmer of glass; in its place, the entire garden teemed with life. The flowers sprawled out of their old, neatly arranged rows, eating up the dirt paths. Some days, when Nozomi stood after tending to a wayward stem, she found grass bursting up under her feet.

A small canal wound its way around the garden beds like a tiny stream, recently completed with Eli’s help; it took a fair bit off Nozomi’s workload. A good thing, considering how her focus had shifted to her new project.

“How are you doing today?” Nozomi said to the pomegranate tree, patting it fondly. The tree, predictably, said nothing. All the same, Nozomi felt the slow answer of the tree’s energy, acknowledging the presence of a goddess.

Maybe it was Nozomi’s overexcitement when she transformed it, or Eli’s initial large sculpture, but the pomegranate tree was much larger than most trees she had seen. The branches arched high overhead, heavy with bright red and orange flowers on the verge of blossoming; the trunk was thick enough to rest one’s back against.

Nozomi settled against the tree’s base, bare hands and arms pressed against the trunk. She let out a deep breath, exhaling until there was no air left in her lungs - empty of nothingness.

Magic surged in response to fill the void. The pomegranate tree shivered against her back, and Nozomi imagined its growth: the magic thick under her skin soaking into the bark, running through the roots and pushing colour into the flowers. The flowers opening slowly, not rushing, just a little encouragement. The fruit hanging ripe from the branches.

When she left, the first pomegranate flower had opened.

* * *

“So,” Alisa said. Her face was a study in barely concealed mirth. “How are things with you two?”

“Just fine, thanks for asking,” Nozomi said glibly. She didn’t let go of Eli’s hand. Eli struggled to meet Alisa’s eyes, but made no move to pull away herself. She coughed into her free fist.

Feebly, Eli said, “Yes, well, things are going well, so could we talk less about my romantic life and more about the state of affairs?”

Alisa’s eyebrows shot up. “Nozomi’s staying?”

“I don’t see any reason for her not to.” Despite her blush, Eli kept her chin high. “I trust her not to spill Underworld secrets to Zeus or whoever. Honestly, do you think she would?”

Alisa considered this solemnly. Then she turned to Nozomi and said, “Invite me to the wedding, won’t you?”

“ _Alisa_.”

“Alright, alright.” Alisa’s playful demeanour fell away, and she leaned over the table; the drapes of her robe fell around her elbows, covering the parchment that in turn covered the whole table. Ink smears ran the length of Eli’s forearm, a testament to her work. Tapping on the relevant writing, Alisa said, “The numbers of the dead have been increasing lately. I haven’t been physically out myself, so I’m not sure why.”

“War?” Eli pondered out loud. “Or famine? Demeter should be handling things well, though. Even if Olympus were playing its petty games again, it would take something incredibly important to actually make her give in to Zeus’ demands.”

Alisa sighed. “It’s more like famine than war. I don’t understand; half of them are dying in their sleep. Maybe some new disease is sweeping the land. At any rate, you should probably prepare for more arrivals. This doesn’t seem to be letting up.”

“Will do,” Eli acknowledged. “I’ll wake you if anything new happens.”

Nozomi asked, “Are you going back to sleep?”

“Mhm. There’s too much work for me to do awake.” Alisa got up and rounded the table to throw her arms around Nozomi in a tight hug. Nozomi hugged back just as tightly. Alisa whispered into Nozomi’s ear, “Take care of Eli, okay? Make sure she rests every now and then.”

“I will,” Nozomi promised.

Alisa pulled away. In a stage whisper loud enough for Eli to hear, she added, “Ask her to take you to Elysium sometime. She has no idea how to plan a date.”

“Alright, time for you to go to bed.” Eli steered Alisa out the door by the shoulders as Nozomi giggled. Undeterred, Alisa waved goodbye, throwing Nozomi one last wink.

Later that day, curled together on a couch, Eli murmured into Nozomi’s shoulder, “What did Alisa tell you?”

“She told me to take care of you.” Nozomi traced patterns at random on Eli’s back, thoughts thick with drowsy affection. If she had to choose, Eli joining her for naps was the best part of their newfound closeness.

“Ah… I suppose I’m in your care then.”

“I’ll do my best,” Nozomi promised. She sealed it with a kiss.

* * *

The ground shook.

Nozomi bit back a curse as she stumbled, nearly stepping on a patch of flowers. The steady stream of water from her water can wavered mid-air. Regaining her balance, she looked around the garden in alarm.

“An earthquake?” she muttered. Such a thing had never happened before. Somehow, it seemed impossible that the earth’s tremors in the mortal world could reach the land of the dead.

A second wave came, shaking dust and small pieces of rock loose from the walls. Nozomi yelped as she lost her footing. Thankfully, she fell backwards onto the path, bruising only her ego.

It was unnerving enough that Nozomi called out to the air, “Hades?”

There was no answer.

That, more than anything, scared Nozomi. Eli had promised she would come when her name was called, and Eli always kept her word. If Eli wouldn’t come, then that meant that Eli couldn’t come.

Nozomi didn’t plan on sitting around and waiting to find out why.

Emerging into the front of the palace, Nozomi flinched at the bright sparks in the distance. She shielded her eyes with one hand. The perpetually dark sky was lit up with flashes of light - no, magic; familiar pale blue flames bursting into existence and fading just as quickly. Sketched out in their fleeting glow was an immense silhouette, moving with glacial slowness. The flames licked around its edges like a firefly harassing a cat.

The road towards the Fields of Asphodel led straight towards the sight.

Nozomi started walking. Her feet moved on their own accord, stumbling faster and faster over the smooth path until she was running. Halfway there, a completely illogical thought flitted through her mind - she’d left her torch behind, how was she going to defend herself?

She was close enough to not only see but hear the battle. The muted roar of Eli’s flames summoned memories of the River Styx, grasping at her ankles; Nozomi shook off the fear with a violent shiver. She wasn’t the same. She wouldn’t be that helpless again. In the background was a long, unending moaning sound that made her ears ache the more aware she became of it.

Then Nozomi topped the crest of the path, giving her an unobstructed view of the Fields of Asphodel and the battle that raged across it.

If there were stars in the Underworld, the creature would have easily blotted them out. Huts crunched like kindling under its blue-black feet; it spread its enormous vulture-like wings and beat them, like a far-away mountain range collapsing in on itself, and the blast of wind forced Nozomi back a step. The air was thick with the scent of rotting flesh. The daimon turned its featureless head, vainly seeking its assaulter, mouth open in an unending groan. Nozomi could see its jagged teeth from her hill - white, streaked here and there with black and red that her mind shied away from contemplating.

Next to it, Eli may as well have been a mouse attacking a lion.

She shouted, her voice far away and thin, and a torrent of blue fire burst from her staff, which gleamed bright silver against the darkness. It had a familiar shape about it. When Eli spun it, slapping away the daimon’s reaching claws, it became clear - it was the tiny key Eli always wore around her neck.

Eli herself seemed to flicker in and out of existence, one moment running up the furred back of the daimon, the next on the ground preparing to launch herself upwards again, disappearing and reappearing mid-air when she blocked a gust of wind with a burst of flames. Even to Nozomi’s inexperienced eye, she was obviously holding her own well.

That did absolutely nothing to dispel the fear twisting her insides.

Especially when she saw the telltale golden glint of ichor speckling Eli’s clothes.

Nozomi burst into a run even as her mind sized up the distance between them; it was too far, she would never get there in time (in time for what? What could one small nature goddess do?), she had no choice but to abandon Eli to her battle -

Magic ran quicksilver hot through her veins. On her next step, her foot burned, suddenly and overwhelmingly thrilling with energy; when she kicked off the path, twenty paces blurred past her eyes in a single step.

Nozomi didn’t stop to question it. The unending crowds of the dead parted before her like thick curtains long unopened, and she hurtled half-blind towards the battle.

Far above, Eli glanced down at the wavelike motion of the shades. Nozomi could see the struck expression on her face, a small pale oval in the dark, when their eyes met.

Then they both cried out - one in terror, one in pain - as the daimon finally landed a solid clip with a wing.

Eli fell.

The silver key fell straight as an arrow; Eli’s body flew through the air in a jerky arc, all control of her trajectory lost. The blue flames sputtered out, leaving the daimon crouching unopposed. It rised out of its cower slowly. The ground vibrated with the long, low bellow of triumph it let out; Nozomi’s teeth ached with the horrible sound.

None of these things mattered. With a final burst of speed, Nozomi leapt, arms wrapping around Eli’s limp body mere feet from the ground. The momentum of her jump carried them a few more paces before the momentum of Eli’s fall slammed them both into the ground.

Nozomi’s jaw clacked audibly from the impact; she could taste blood in her mouth. Golden ichor was everywhere. Nozomi patted Eli over frantically as she mumbled, “Come on, Elichi, wake up…”

On her head was a helm that wasn’t any particular colour; it was simply as though a hole had been cut out in the fabric of the world around Eli’s head, leaving only her eyes, mouth and chin exposed. Nozomi hated it on first sight - hated the way it distorted Eli’s face, leaving it alien; hated the danger it represented.

Nozomi’s hand came away soaked after a brush on the back of Eli’s neck, god’s blood matting long locks of blonde hair together. It must have been where the last blow connected.

Eli’s eyes shot open. Her blue irises were clouded over with the confusion of the concussed. “Nozomi,” she muttered, voice clogged, before she screwed up her face and spat a globe of gold onto the ground.

“Shh, don’t talk, it’s alright.” Nozomi looped her arm behind Eli’s back and made to throw Eli’s arm over her shoulder. They needed to go, get out of there, anywhere but here - she stopped at the darkness that fell over them.

The daimon stood over them, wings unfurled wide enough to block out the dim artificial Underworld light. Nozomi gagged on the stench of rotting meat, and Eli groaned, struggling to her feet.

“I have to stop it,” Eli slurred, deaf to Nozomi’s protests. She clutched at her neck, where the key would normally hang. “Eurynomos… it’ll eat them all if I don’t…”

Nozomi gritted her teeth and glanced around desperately for Eli’s weapon. The key-staff lay between the daimon - Eurynomos’ feet, well out of reach. Between Eurynomos and the two goddesses lay a sea of the dead, standing still and staring vacantly.

Though Eli’s gaze grew clearer by the second, Eurynomos wasn’t inclined towards waiting for its opponent to recover. It let out another groan and took another step towards them, shaking the earth.

Panic clouding her thoughts, Nozomi yelled at the gathered shades, “Bring us the key!”

Dead eyes stared back at Nozomi. The shades deigned her no other response.

She should have known - she should have expected nothing else from what were essentially memories held together in a loose human shape. And yet it was the only thing she could do. Because Nozomi didn’t belong here, Nozomi was just a minor goddess with no real domain or power of her own, and no matter how much the Underworld felt like home, how much _Eli_ felt like home, she could never be privy to all its secrets -

On the verge of tears, Nozomi grabbed at the wrist of the nearest shade. It seemed to coalesce under her hand, more solid than any other shade she’d felt. Magic rang through her like the hollow peal of a bell. “ _Help us!_ ” she screamed at the spirits of the dead.

Her voice was not her own. There was a second tone underlying her normal, desperate voice, echoing her words in perfect harmony that had every shade’s head within hearing range turning towards her. Her magic seemed to crackle through and over the surface of her skin, her entire body one giant raw nerve.

The shades obeyed.

Angry whispers rose like the buzzing of a million bees as the shades turned as one towards Eurynomos. They clutched at its claw-like feet, swarming up its legs, consuming its feathered body from the ground up in a tidal wave of ghostly figures. Eurynomos let out a long moan, head swinging ponderously, and tried to beat its wings; but the shades clung to the tips of its feathers, and it sank back down into its crouch, weighed down with uncounted souls that swarmed endlessly from every corner of the Fields.

“Keep it down!” Nozomi’s voice cracked on the command. She didn’t care. Eli leaned her weight against Nozomi, head lolling onto Nozomi’s shoulder. Nozomi tightened her grip on Eli’s waist and turned to the shade whose wrist she was still holding. Its grey head tilted towards her. Not pausing to think about what she was doing, Nozomi demanded, “Bring us the key.”

The shade obediently shuffled away.

“Nozomi,” Eli mumbled, voice sticky with ichor, and Nozomi’s attention was immediately refocused. She shushed Eli gently.

“You hit your head,” she said, trying to quell the shake in her voice, which was back to its normal tone. “Elichi, you’re hurt - we need to move you so you can rest and heal. What should I do with E-eury… the daimon?”

Eli took a few deep breaths, eyes closed, then whispered hoarsely, “I have to banish it. Can you… help me stand…”

The shade came shuffling back, holding the key out to Nozomi. Nozomi took it and pressed it into Eli’s slippery palms - then, when Eli’s weak grip threatened to drop it, furled her own hands protectively over Eli’s. They straightened to face Eurynomos.

Only the daimon’s face was visible, likely because it snapped its gory jaws at every shade that came near. The rest of it was bogged down in the spirits Nozomi had somehow controlled. Its head and neck were parallel to the ground - close enough for a clear shot. Together, the goddesses aimed the Key of Hades at its gaping mouth.

Eli whispered an incantation, of which Nozomi only caught the words 'Eurynomos’ and 'Tartarus’. A gout of white-blue flame issued from the tip of Eli’s key, aimed straight and true into the daimon’s mouth. The roar of pain it let out shook shades off like milky white scales shedding from its body - but at the same time, it shrank, smaller and smaller, from mountain range to mountain to city to house until Eurynomos was barely visible for the shades that mobbed it.

“Leave it,” Nozomi ordered. The burst of magic was harder to summon this time, making her eyes water with the effort, and the shades moved away reluctantly.

Eli took a small step forward. Her key stabbed into the ground as a makeshift crutch. Nozomi helped her; side by side, they limped towards their foe, now crouched on the ground, barely larger than a fox.

Eurynomos turned its head up pitifully as they approached. The chilling moan it let out was more like a whimper. With lethargic labour, Eli sketched a portal just big enough for it. Nothing but darkness could be seen beyond.

“I banish you from my realm,” Eli commanded. Her eyes narrowed. “Go back to Tartarus.”

The daimon scrambled through the portal in an ungainly tumble of wings and too-long limbs. Then Eli sighed, and slumped against Nozomi, the last of her strength spent. The key clattered to the ground as the portal shut. By the time it stopped bouncing, it was key-sized once more, gleaming innocuously against the ground.

Hesitant, Nozomi touched Eli’s shoulder, as if she would disintegrate at the light pressure.

“Elichi,” she whispered.

There was no response.

She barely had enough time to take in a steadying breath before all the emotion that had been pushed down under the panic rushed her. Terror, relief, worry, pride, anger, simple magical stress, _relief_ \- all burnt through her, left her clean and blank and adrift in nothingness with no idea whether she was falling or flying.

She was shaking.

When Eli failed to stir, Nozomi shifted her onto her back, pulling Eli’s limp legs around her hips with grim determination. She bent to put the key into her pocket. Then she started the walk back to the palace. The back of her head burned from the blank stares of the shades.

She had enough time to think about many, many things on the way.

* * *

Nozomi woke to the feeling of a hand carding through her hair.

Under her cheek, Eli’s chest rose and fell with her even breaths. Nozomi shut her eyes a little tighter and focused on the steady thud-thud of Eli’s heart. She felt burnt up, hollow, as if the magic she had wielded had eaten its way through her power reserves and then turned on her soul - her very vitality -  for more fuel.

She remembered hauling Eli up the stairs to the bedroom, letting her slide off her back onto the bed, and then nothing. She must have fallen asleep. If anything, the nap had left her more drained before, as the battle-high wore off.

It would be so nice to just stay there forever, dozing with Eli.

But there were things that needed to be said.

Nozomi pushed herself upright and rubbed sleep dust out of her bleary eyes. Eli looked at her, unsurprised. Her face was still smeared with dirt and dried-bronze ichor, but her eyes were clear, and she held herself upright without any strain.

Nozomi wanted to hug her, kiss her, anything that could return the tender look in her eyes. But there was a lump in her throat, cold and hard. It tasted a little like fury and a little like betrayal.

“Would you care to explain what happened today, Elichi?” Nozomi asked with deathly calm.

Eli swallowed and looked away. “Eurynomos is the daimon that consumes the corpses of the dead. It stays in Tartarus and absorbs hatred, fear, all the energy of the Pit until it grows strong enough to leave. If it reaches the surface, it’ll wreak havoc, so I have to - ”

“I didn’t mean that.”

Eli went quiet. Her face turned downwards, Nozomi barely saw the flicker of guilt cross her face. When nothing else was forthcoming, Nozomi said softly, “Why didn’t you tell me you were going to do something so risky?”

“It’s my duty.” Eli lifted her head. The jut of her chin was defiant, but she still wouldn’t meet Nozomi’s eyes. “Keeping the monsters down in Tartarus goes with the throne. It wasn’t anything special. I’ve fought Eurynomos countless times before.”

“That doesn’t make it any less dangerous,” Nozomi insisted. “Don’t I have a right to know when the person I care for is walking into a battle?”

Eli clenched her jaw. “You shouldn’t have to interfere in something so dangerous.”

That was entirely the wrong thing to say. Nozomi seized Eli’s shoulders, and the tiny selfish part of her wrapped up in her anger reveled in the shocked look in Eli’s eyes. “I’m your friend, and I’m your partner,” Nozomi said fiercely. “I don’t want to find out you’ve been fighting daimons by seeing you stumbling back home, bleeding everywhere!”

“I don’t want to see you on the battlefield!” Eli snapped back, but there was no bite to it. Nozomi rose to the challenge regardless.

“Because I’m not strong enough? Because I’d slow you down?”

“Because I love you!”

The rest of her words stuck to the roof of Nozomi’s mouth. Eli brought her hand up to her mouth, as if she could snatch the words back out of the air, but it was too late. They stared mutely at each other.

Finally, Eli whispered, “That wasn’t how I wanted to tell you.”

“I,” said Nozomi, then failed to find the rest of her sentence.

The words spilled out with the halting rhythm of a confession. “I didn’t want you to get hurt. I just thought - I never thought you would slow me down, I just worried that your abilities didn’t seem combat-oriented - no, that’s not what I wanted to say. I just worried that if I told you, then you’d worry as well…” Eli shook her head. “You’re… Nozomi, you deserve better than this. I didn’t want to involve you because I’m… I’m afraid I’m tying you down here.”

“I’m nowhere I don’t want to be,” Nozomi said. And finally the words were coming back, even though her voice sounded thin, soft, stripped down to the bare truth. She slid her hands down Eli’s shoulders to her hands and gripped them - partly to hold Eli in place, partly to hold herself in place. “And if we’re deciding what each other deserves, then I think you deserve me, at the very least. Eli, I want this. I want _you_. I love you too, but you can’t shut me out when you’re doing things that put yourself at danger, Queen of the Underworld or not, just because you think it’ll upset me. You’ll just have to let me decide what to feel and how to feel on my own.”

Eli stared in something like wonder as Nozomi spoke. Her eyes were bright. When Nozomi fell silent on the last word, voice trembling too much and thoughts too disarrayed to continue, Eli let out a breath that was half sigh, half laugh.

“I’m sorry,” she said, dashing her hand across her eyes. “Yes, you’re right. I just… I don’t like to think about you in danger. It’s selfish and hypocritical and stupid, I know, but I can’t help it.”

Nozomi gave her a weak smile. “Neither do I, to be honest. We’re just both going to have to learn to cope with each other being in danger, because I’m not letting you go out and get hurt again without being there myself.”

“Agreed.”

They took the long way to the baths, hands twined together. When Nozomi stepped through the curtained doorway, she held the curtains aside in a wordless invitation; Eli didn’t hesitate to step through. They discarded their clothes in a messy pile by the entrance.

Eli wouldn’t look at first. Manners and honour even in the bath. It took a palm cupped to her cheek, turning her head with gentle insistence, for her to face Nozomi - and then they drank each other in with their gazes, looking and looking until Nozomi thought she could close her eyes and see the lines of Eli’s bared skin sketched on her eyelids. She could barely feel the water’s heat for the aching love burning in her.

Nozomi took the soap without another word. She worked it methodically through Eli’s thick hair, untangling every knot by hand, watching the suds and the blood flow away. When she was done, Eli took it from her hand as carefully as if she were being given a gift.

As Nozomi surrendered herself to the soft bliss of Eli’s fingers massaging away the grit in her hair, Eli said quietly, “Do you know how you did what you did with your magic?”

“I have a theory,” Nozomi said. Eli’s fingers paused, then returned to their task, working their way to the ends of Nozomi’s hair.

“Oh?”

“I don’t think it’s to do with plants. I think it’s to do with life. Bringing your garden to life, bringing your subjects to life, even if just for a moment. Wouldn’t that be interesting?”

Eli thought over it in silence as she finished washing Nozomi’s hair. Finally, she rinsed out the last few tresses, and said, “If that’s what it is, then what a pair we’d be.”

Death and life. Night and day, two sides of the same coin, Nozomi claiming a space equal and opposite to Eli’s. It was nice to think about, even if Hades was a goddess with a station far beyond hers.

“What a pair we’d be,” Nozomi repeated, turning to face Eli. The kiss they shared tasted like belonging.

* * *

Nozomi stared, open-mouthed.

“You like it?” Eli asked with childish glee. Nozomi wanted to tease her. Unfortunately, she was a little too busy trying to comprehend what she saw.

Elysium was truly paradise. The waters surrounding the islands were clear blue and pristine; each blade of grass was perfectly green, forged from some metal so pliant it crushed under their bare feet without breaking. Above them, tree branches arched like rainbows, bursting with leaves and flowers in every colour imaginable. It was the crowning jewel in Eli’s already impressive array of creations.

Nozomi worked her jaw, then turned to Eli. “How long did it take?”

“Not long, actually,” Eli said, obviously delighting in the explanations. “Half of it is the other gods’ work, and the mortals’ imaginations. I only provided the materials. Paradise is what you make it; everybody sees something slightly different.”

Curious. “What do you see, Elichi?”

“What do _you_ see?” she countered.

Nozomi started to describe the sight, but her tongue felt glued to the roof of her mouth. There were no words. Eli watched with silent mirth at her struggles.

“I see your point,” Nozomi finally conceded. It was still heartbreakingly gorgeous, but somehow… “It’s beautiful, but I like the garden better.”

Eli’s answering smile was bright as the sunlight filtering through the leaves. “Me too.”

Nozomi took a few steps, surveying the edges of the empty island they stood on. The hill sloped smoothly down into a white sand beach. “And this is where you were going to tell me you loved me?”

“I’ll tell you again, if you’d like,” Eli offered. Nozomi quirked an eyebrow.

“Getting cheeky, aren’t we?” she teased. “Very well. How were you going to tell me?”

“Well…” Eli abandoned fussing with the blanket to catch Nozomi’s hands in hers. She said, anticipation coloring her tone, “I would have told you that no matter how beautiful our surroundings were, you would still be the most beautiful thing there.”

Nozomi didn’t even try to stifle the snort of undignified laughter. Eli looked mildly affronted. “I worked hard on that line,” Eli protested, but that only sent Nozomi into another bout of giggles.

“I’m sorry, Elichi, but you… may be putting effort into the wrong things…”

“Oh? I’ll try again then.” As always, Nozomi’s breath hitched when Eli looked down into her eyes, all infinite tenderness. “Nozomi, I love you.”

Her pulse thudded in her ears, obnoxiously loud, and Nozomi glanced off. “Let’s eat,” she said quickly, pointedly not looking at Eli’s triumphant glow.

“Eat?” Eli repeated. Her gaze zeroed in on the bag that Nozomi had refused to explain.

With a flourish, Nozomi reached into the bag and pulled out the fruits of her labours.

“Pomegranates!” Eli said, eyes fixed to the fruits in Nozomi’s hand. Nozomi nodded, welling with pride. It had taken a great deal of effort to grow them as 'naturally’ as she could, only giving the pomegranate tree a nudge here and there. Magically generated food still tasted good, but it wasn’t the same.

“My favourites,” she said. With practised ease, Nozomi dug her nails into the first one, splitting the purple-red skin open. A few loose seeds fell from the halves, but Eli’s hand shot out, catching them. The look of bliss on her lover’s face when she popped the seeds into her mouth made all of Nozomi’s effort worth it.

Eli eagerly accepted the half Nozomi held out. “I haven’t had fruit in eons. Most mortals sacrifice meat, if they ever do.”

“You don’t get many?” Nozomi asked. Eli shook her head.

“Mortals don’t like to think about me waiting for them, I’m told. Not that it matters.” She made a derisive sound. “I don’t need to be bribed to do my job, unlike Zeus.”

Nozomi thought about the almost daily offerings that materialised in Hanayo’s hearth. Hanayo always treated them as great gifts, complimenting the choices of sacrifices and doing her best to grant the mortals their wishes. She always insisted on splitting them with Nozomi, too. Wistful, Nozomi commented, “If only they knew how kind you were. You deserve more recognition.”

Eli swallowed her mouthful of seeds and leaned over to kiss Nozomi, sticky sweet with pomegranate juice. “Your recognition’s all I need,” she said, once again all stark honesty.

Nozomi really needed to stop falling for cheesy lines.

“Where are all the heroes?” she asked to distract herself, pulling another pomegranate from the bag.

Eli pointed over the shallow straits to the other islands. “I asked them to clear a little space. There are plenty of islands, after all.”

Nozomi squinted. Sure enough, there were indistinct figures moving around the other islands, surprisingly corporeal and active. One seemed to lift an arm; Nozomi waved back. “They’re quite alive for dead mortals,” she noted.

“It’s due to their willpower. Heroes tend to be two things - they have an incredible will to live and to accomplish things, and they have been able to accomplish those things.” Eli held a seed up to her eyes and peered through them, fascinated by the prism-like shape. “They’re satisfied with life. They have no regrets.

"On the other hand, there are some in the Fields that have the same will, but weren’t able to live their life to their satisfaction. They’re the ones who still cling to life. But they’re one in a thousand; most dead mortals just stand still in the Fields.”

No second chances in life. “What about the ones I commanded?” Ever since the incident a while ago, Nozomi hadn’t been able to put it out of her mind. Once, she woke in the middle of the night and went to the Fields to see if she could repeat the feat. One look at the impassive dead had changed her mind. Taking control over them felt like a terrible invasion of privacy.

Eli said, “The ones you ordered acted like the ones who had willpower. But the dead never change like that. Even when I order them, they move slowly, and they can’t carry out complex actions like bringing down a daimon.”

“Hmm…” Nozomi popped a thimbleful of pomegranate seeds into her mouth and thought about the shades that had come to life at her word.

When she reached into the bag again, her fingers brushed empty fabric; she couldn’t help a disappointed little sigh. It had been nice to taste the flavours of the surface again.

“You can grow more of them, right?” Eli said, hopeful. Nozomi began to answer in the affirmative when she noticed their arms, and she started laughing helplessly instead. They were both stained with streaks of red pomegranate juice, the skin between their fingers spiderwebbed with colour. Eli stuck her bright red tongue out at Nozomi, which only had her laughing harder.

It felt a little bit like sacrilege to go down and wash herself in the clean water, so Nozomi reached for the cloth bag, planning to blot the worst of the mess before they went back to properly wash themselves. Eli had apparently thought the same thing. Eli had apparently found a very different solution.

Bringing her arm up to her mouth, Eli steadily licked up the trails of juice, tongue laving her skin in a hypnotic motion. She mistook Nozomi’s wide-eyed gaze as disgust. “Waste not, want not,” she said defensively.

For all the fruit she had just eaten, Nozomi’s mouth was strangely dry. The sight of Eli furling her tongue around her thumb jarred her back out of her stupor.

“Let me,” Nozomi said, sounding bolder than she felt. Eli looked up quizzically.

“What?”

“I want to know what it tastes like.”

“You know what it tastes like, it’s just pome- ” Eli’s incredulous scoff cut off mid-word as Nozomi took a red-stained finger into her mouth. Mouth agape, she watched Nozomi clean her finger meticulously, dragging soft lips along her skin with half-lidded eyes.

Nozomi rose, leaning her forehead against Eli’s. “You’re sweet,” she murmured, revelling in the sudden speed of Eli’s pulse. She could see the nerves jumping in her neck. Eli tilted her head up pleadingly and led them both into a kiss, deep and achingly sweet, the taste of pomegranate fading away to the simple warmth that was Eli’s mouth.

Then Eli moved away, chasing the sweetness down along her chin and jaw; Nozomi curled her fingers in Eli’s hair and let her head fall back. She wondered if Eli could see the sheer gladness glowing through her skin.

“Home?” Eli said against Nozomi’s collarbone.

Home.

“Please,” Nozomi said, closing her eyes and kissing Eli again as the portal opened into the familiar drapings of the bedroom.

* * *

As appealing as the idea of staying in bed all day sounded, alas, it was not to be. Not when there was a hellhound howling loud enough to wake the dead for minutes on end.

Next to Nozomi, Eli let out a ten second long groan into her pillow. “I hate him,” she grumbled.

“You love him,” Nozomi drowsily corrected her. “He’s your dog. How could you not?”

“Watch me return him to Echidna.” Finally, Eli sat upright, stretching with a jaw-cracking yawn. She went bright red at Nozomi’s appreciative stare and tugged the blankets up over her head, much to Nozomi’s dismay; when Nozomi freed her head again, Eli was already dressed.

“Coming?” Eli said, eyebrows quirked challengingly.

Nozomi laughed and slid out from under the blankets. Dressing took a little longer for her, but she took her time, utterly shameless. Flustering Eli was a reward in and of itself, well worth any number of slowly laced sandals and unnecessary fiddling with undergarments.

When they arrived at the banks of the River Styx, they found Cerberus barking furiously, one foot raised and all three heads pointed across the river. Nozomi peered into the dark mist, but couldn’t see anything.

Eli’s demeanour changed as soon as she saw Cerberus’ behaviour. She soothed him down to silence with pats and soft words, but the lines of her body were tense. “Something wrong?” Nozomi said, tapping her hand.

“No,” Eli said. She forced a smile. “Yes. It’s just… you’ll see.”

With that remark, she sketched a portal and took Nozomi’s hand. “Shall we?” said Eli, moving forward without waiting.

It took a moment for Nozomi to realise where they’d gone. Even though she’d only stood there for a few minutes, a chill ran down her spine as she recognised the tunnel and the steps leading to the black water. It was where she had emerged into the Underworld all those months ago.

But this time, there was someone else there.

Eli called out, “Kotori!”

The woman standing at the entrance to the tunnel looked up. Her ash-grey hair nearly melded with the dim light of the torches and the shades passing by, but there was no mistaking the self-contained energy of a divine being - or the magical artifacts she wore and held. The wings on her sandals quivered as she stepped forward, and on the caduceus she held, twin snakes raised their silver heads to stare at Eli and Nozomi.

“Hades,” Hermes returned, her neutral face unreadable. Her voice was high and sweet.

Nozomi had only ever caught glimpses of the messenger goddess. Hanayo rarely communicated with Olympus, and the forests they frequented were far away from most roads mortals travelled. The most communication Nozomi had had with Hermes was a wave here, a smile there - not even her name.

Eli had faltered when Hermes spoke. She looked confused, but pushed forwards nonetheless. “It’s good to see you,” she said, clasping their hands in a quick greeting. “Kotori, this is Persephone, goddess of nature. We think. Have you met?”

“Only briefly,” Nozomi said. She gave Hermes the warmest smile she could muster. “It’s nice to meet you. Are you a friend of Eli’s?”

Hermes looked back and forth between the two of them, face morphing from blank to mystified. “I… am,” she agreed. “It’s a pleasure, Persephone.”

“What brings you back so soon?” Eli asked. “You don’t visit this often usually. Are there… any problems on the surface?”

Understanding was like a blow to the face.

Of course Hermes, god of all travellers, messenger to the pantheon, would be able to enter and leave the Underworld. Of course Nozomi was to go with her. Of course their time was up.

It was so stupid to forget that she couldn’t stay forever.

“Hades,” Hermes said, then stopped. The metallic snakes on her caduceus writhed agitatedly. “Eli, could you… tell me why Persephone’s here? Please?”

Eli frowned at the non-sequitur. “Persephone fell into the Underworld by accident. Since I’m forbidden to return her, she’s been staying as my guest until somebody who could, would.”

“Your guest,” Hermes repeated, looking at their joined hands.

“At first,” Nozomi added. She stepped closer to Eli protectively. Alisa’s words echoed through her mind. _We always have less time than we think we do._

“Something’s wrong, isn’t there?” Eli’s hand rose subconsciously to her key. “Kotori, tell me. What’s happening on the surface?”

The snakes fell silent.

Kotori’s darting gaze reminded Nozomi of nervous birds, ready to fly at the first hint of danger. In the clear voice and formal cadence of one delivering a message, she said, “Olympus believes Hades kidnapped Persephone from the surface. Demeter has covered the earth with an eternal winter in her grief, and she cannot bring it to life again. The world is unbalanced. The mortals are dying. By order of Zeus, King of the Gods, Hades must return Persephone to the surface and never attempt to contact her again, or war will be declared and Olympus will march on the Underworld. You have three days to make your choice.

"Hades, Persephone, I’m sorry.”

* * *

“Ah, merciless Love, is there any length to which you cannot force the human heart to go?” - Virgil, _Aeneid_


	3. Act III

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Nozomi helps open a package, touches snow, and sits on a very nice chair.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> finally got around to cross-posting this to ao3 n squished some grammar bugs while i was at it too!

"What cannot be spoken will be wept." - Sappho

* * *

   
Eli kidnapping her? Awkward, careful, righteously lonely Eli?  _Her_  Eli?

It was so absurd that Nozomi wanted to laugh till she was breathless enough to explain her lightheadedness. Somehow, she didn’t think that would be well-received by the other two.

“But I chose,” Nozomi said blankly instead. “K- Hermes, I just - fell. I chose to stay…”

“I know,” Kotori said gently. “Well, now I do. But no one will believe it.”

Without hesitation, Eli said, “They will.” The air thickened with power, weighing down on them. To Nozomi, it felt like a warm blanket, promising and protective.

But Kotori’s shoulders hunched under it. With a pleading note, she started, “Eli -”

“No.” Eli’s face was calm and smooth as the ice on the River Lethe, belying the ocean of emotion Nozomi could feel under it, the deep current of anger and hurt. “I will draw up an oath. You will deliver it to Olympus. On my name as Hades, I will swear my innocence.”

“And on my name as Persephone, I will sign witness,” Nozomi added. Eli’s hand in hers tightened; from that simple touch came comfort. They would work through this.

“No one will read it,” said Kotori.

Silence. The pressure doubled. Eli asked softly, “And why not?”

Kotori’s throat bobbed; Nozomi fancied she could hear the dry swallow. Kotori’s snakes coiled off the caduceus and onto their master’s arm in their agitation, writhing up her sleeves till only their tails were glued to the staff still, forever bound.

“He’s watching me,” Kotori said. Her voice dropped to a hush, barely audible over the sound of lapping water. “The moment I step out of your domain, He’ll know. Eli,  _I am your friend_. And He knows that. I must bring Him everything first, and nothing I bring to Him will see the light of day.”

Only one god held that kind of authority. Nozomi licked her dry lips. “You mean, Z- ”

“Shh. Names have power,” Kotori cautioned.

“Zeus has no power here,” Eli snapped back. The Underworld groaned around them. “And that won’t change, no matter how much he wants. Isn’t that right? He wants the Underworld too. Nothing’s enough for him!”

By the end, Eli’s voice had risen almost to a shout. Her key was vibrating. Even Nozomi couldn’t help but feel a twinge of fear: here was the second eldest child of Kronos, and she was nothing short of furious.

“No,” Kotori said. “He just wants you gone, Eli.”

As sudden as the snuffing of a candle, Eli’s anger went out. “Why?” she said, voice cracking on the vowel.

Kotori took a careful step forward. When Eli didn’t react, she rested her hand on Eli’s shoulder in weak comfort. There was unexpected familiarity in it and in the way Eli leaned into it, and Nozomi remembered - Kotori had been Eli’s only visitor.

“Because you are the only one with a domain to match His. Poseidon shares the earth with Demeter, and he has everything he wants.” Both Eli and Kotori shared a glance with Nozomi. It didn’t need to be said that Hanayo clearly had no plans for Olympus’ throne. “Hera may quarrel with Zeus, but even if she did mean to topple Him, He would never suspect her. And it’s not in Hestia’s nature to fight. Which leaves you, Eli.”

They were treading on old history. Hanayo preferred not to talk about the Titanomachy, but even Nozomi, who had come into existence long after those bones became dust, knew its lingering legacy.

“I fought at his side,” Eli whispered. “I never thought of fighting against - maybe I didn’t want it at first, but now, now the Underworld is mine. I’d never abandon it.”

Slowly but surely, Eli’s shoulders straightened. The cold determination in her eyes reminded Nozomi of when they’d first met. Pronouncing every syllable with deliberate care, Eli declared, “If he wants a fight, that’s what he’ll have.”

“But Persephone can’t - ”

“I’m staying,” Nozomi said over the blood roaring in her ears. It was a step up from just signing an oath like she’d planned to, true, but there was no question. Not if giving in meant never seeing Eli again; not if it meant leaving Eli to her solitude again.  "I’ll fight him too, if that’s what it’ll take. My place is here.“

She squeezed Eli’s hand and met her uncertain gaze without flinching. "If I ever leave, it’ll be of my own free will. Not because of someone who thinks he can use me to blackmail the person I love.”

The familiar fear flashed in Eli’s eyes, the same as when they had fought Eurynomos. But this time, it faded away in a moment. “He won’t know what hit him,” Eli agreed with a wry smile.

Flushed with adrenaline (and with Eli’s approval - they would stand side by side this time), Nozomi turned back to Kotori. “Tell him that, Hermes,” she said. Her smile felt more like baring her teeth.

Kotori looked between them. Measuredly, she said, “And what will you do if you win? Even if you do, you can’t stay. This is the Underworld. Only the dead and their gods live here.”

At the two looks of blank incomprehension, Kotori chewed on her lip. The snakes bobbed uncertainly. “Persephone, how long have you been here?”

Days and nights passed oddly, light cycles turning only as fast as Hades willed. Nozomi counted back in sleeps, or periods of long awakeness. She ventured, “Four weeks?”

“Three months, by the mortal world’s count,” Hermes said gently. Eli sucked in a soft breath.

“That can’t be right,” Nozomi said, frowning. Gods didn’t need to sleep, strictly speaking, unless they were truly exhausted. Nozomi had gotten into the habit of doing so anyway, thanks to the day-night cycle above ground. It was nice to just let time slip past sometimes. She’d kept up the habit while in the Underworld, and she certainly hadn’t had ninety-something stretches of sleeping.

“No,” Eli said, face wan. “I did think - but Alisa sleeps so much, and I rarely did before, so I thought that was just normal, how much you slept.”

“But the light cycle - ”

“I changed it for you.” Part of Nozomi thrilled at those last two words, but it was buried under the growing dismay. Eli’s hand went to her key, twisting in her chain as she said, “I just thought it would make you more comfortable. Time never really mattered here. I didn’t know…”

“Are you tired?” pressed Kotori.

“Y-yes.” It slipped out without Nozomi’s realisation, and it tasted like the revelation of a lie. A confession - or an omitted truth.

“Only the dead and their gods live here,” Kotori repeated. “Anyone else who stays too long slowly drains away, becomes a shadow of themselves. A shade. Even other gods can only be visitors.”

It felt like they were standing on a narrow road, and Kotori had just pointed a bright light down, down, and suddenly Nozomi saw that they had been walking alongside a bottomless abyss all along, hidden by the shadows of the Underworld and the distractions of the everyday bright pleasures they’d been indulging in.

Nozomi knew Kotori wasn’t being cruel for cruelty’s sake. Not with the way Kotori was still touching Eli, offering support. Not when Kotori’s eyes glimmered with early grief for them that Nozomi didn’t want to see.

Still, it hurt when Kotori said, “You were never meant to stay, Persephone.”

* * *

****Eli sat slumped against the base of the throne. Her head was in her hands, hair falling loose and limp around her face. She hadn’t moved for half an hour by Nozomi’s estimate - not that Nozomi trusted herself to know time anymore.

Nozomi sat just a few steps away on the dais, fiddling with the package in her hands. Kotori had given it to them just before she’d left.

“From a friend,” Kotori had said. “Remember - you still have those in Olympus. Don’t lose hope, Eli, Persephone.”

She’d turned to leave, the wings on her sandals already stirring up tiny gusts.

“Wait.”

The single syllable had dropped like a stone; both Kotori and Nozomi had stiffened and turned to the speaker. Hades had drawn herself up to her full height, locking gazes with Kotori, and Nozomi was only glad she wasn’t the subject of that scrutiny.

“Hermes,” said Hades. “You’ve seen the truth. If Olympus truly went to war, would you stand by me?”

Kotori’s hands had clenched and unclenched around her caduceus, nearly shivering with nervous energy, but she’d held her head high as she answered, “I would never stand against you. Please, don’t ask more of me yet, Hades. Not till there is no turning back.” Then, softer, “I have people I’d lose, too.”

And she was gone as soon as Eli sighed and dipped her head in acknowledgement.

Since then, neither Nozomi nor Eli had said a single word the long trip back to the palace.

Until now.

“Maybe,” Eli murmured, and Nozomi’s stomach dropped at her forlorn tone, “maybe I should just. Do as he says.”

Hot bile roiled in Nozomi’s stomach. Eli went on, grinding her palms into her eyes. “I can’t say I’d win. And I don’t want him to- to damn you as well. You deserve better than the dead, anyway. It might hurt for now, but if you could have a chance… I-I could live with that.”

A laugh bitter as pomegranate skin, one Nozomi had never heard. Eli added, “I’ve spent forever alone. What’s another eternity or two?”

Eli was such a  _fool_.

Nozomi dropped the package without a second thought and stalked over to Eli. Eli didn’t lift her head until Nozomi cupped Eli’s face in her hands, carefully soft yet unyielding. Then, Eli’s eyes widened as Nozomi leant their foreheads together.

“If you think I’ll ever be happy again knowing I could have had you and I left you, you’d better think again, Hades,” Nozomi said. Eli jerked at the use of her title; Nozomi tasted narcissi, felt a metallic chill in her veins at the invocation. Relentless, she went on.

“Zeus was targeting you, yes. But I said it before and I’ll say it again: I won’t be his leverage. This isn’t just against you, it’s against me, too. It’s against us.

"Maybe you wouldn’t win. But maybe we would. So Elichi,  _stop lying to yourself about how you feel_.” This with a gentle shake of Eli’s head, Nozomi’s fingers tangled in blonde hair like she’ll never let go.

And with that, the tears finally welled over.

Eli clung to Nozomi like a lost child, and Nozomi clung back, feeling every hiccuped sob shudder against her breastbone. Felt more than heard, Eli cried until Nozomi thought her heart would simply give out. Her own cheeks were wet, but she barely noticed. All she could think of was burning into her mind the shape of Eli’s thin shoulderblades against her hand, the curve of her palm against Eli’s face. She would remember this always: would be able to summon Eli’s shape with her own body, natural as breathing.

Eventually, the storm subsided. They sat quietly together for as long as they felt they were allowed to, and then a little longer. But time was slipping, slipping, slipping.

“I need to wake Alisa,” Eli mumbled. She dried her eyes against her sleeve; Nozomi helped, dabbing at the tear tracks on Eli’s cheeks. She wasn’t convinced - that was easy to tell - but at least the determination had come back into the set of her shoulders. Eli had a goal. Now she could move. “I need to ask her what to do. Come with me?”

“Of course, Elichi.”

* * *

Eli’s teleportation took them to the mouth of a small cave with a passage that curled down and down. “My authority wanes beyond here,” Eli said, summoning a blue flame with a click of her fingers. “Beings older than I make their home in the dark. Alisa is only one of them.”

“They’re friendly though,” Nozomi said, hoping that was definitely the case.

Eli hummed. “Well, they won’t hurt you. They just… are.”

How comforting. Nozomi kept one hand in the crook of Eli’s elbow as they descended. Narrow tunnels wove off the main passage, some ending barely steps in, others twisting out of sight. The hairs on the back of Nozomi’s neck prickled.

It took them only a few minutes to reach the place where Alisa lay. For a moment, Nozomi almost took her for dead; she lay unmoving without so much as a breath. Her pale skin gave off an almost luminescent glow that lit the cavern like a guiding beacon in the night.

Eli settled onto her knees next to Alisa. “It’ll take a while to wake her up when she’s not the one deciding to,” she said as the now-familiar aura of Eli’s magic set the air alive. “She needs to come back and get used to having a body again.”

“You’ve done this before?” Nozomi asked, watching Eli take Alisa’s hand and shift her seat until she was comfortable. Eli gave a wry smile.

“This is… the third time, I think. Not many things are important enough to take Thanatos away from her duties.” Eli hefted Alisa’s limp hand, then seemed to come to a decision, and offered the hand to Nozomi. “Here - let’s see if it’ll work with you too.”

Alisa’s hand was cold as a corpse’s, stripes of fading warmth where Eli’s fingers had laid. “What do I do?”

“Look for her,” Eli said simply.

Easier said than done, but if Eli thought Nozomi could, then so did Nozomi. She breathed in, let it out in a long exhale till her lungs were empty - and on her next breath, tried to imagine pulling Thanatos in.

Alisa’s magic was poppies, thick and rich and sweet, and the remnants of smoke from an extinguished flame. Trying to gather it was like trying to slake your thirst by catching raindrops on your tongue. Still, it was there, gathering Alisa’s consciousness drop by scattered drop.

The task was easy to lose oneself in. Shoulder to shoulder with Eli on the hard rock floor, Nozomi floated in the flow of magic. All the while, her mind turned their problem over and over again.

How to make it so Nozomi could stay? Pleasant as the waking times had been, she shivered to think of days passing her by in sleep. It wasn’t fair to either of them that what little time they could share was halved and halved again. How to stand against the king of the gods? How to justify the losses that would undoubtedly come from such a fight, just for the love of two people?

If they only had time - time enough to smooth mountains and wear away the jagged edges of the problem to reveal an answer -

Nozomi blinked. “Did you say something, Elichi?”

Eli gave her a strange look. “No,” she said. “I haven’t made a sound. Neither has Alisa.”

“I could have sworn…” There it was again. “Someone’s calling me.”

Eli’s hand shot to her key, but a moment later, she relaxed and let out a low grumble. “It’s probably the Moirai.”

“The Fates?” A tiny flame of hope lit in Nozomi’s chest. She said, “Do you think they’d help? Or at least give some advice?”

Eli, though, wasn’t nearly as enthused. “They’ve only spoken to me twice, but neither time was particularly useful. Their riddles will drive you to distraction if you’re not careful. They never make sense until after what’s to happen has already happened, anyway.”

Nozomi gently flicked Eli’s forehead. “Don’t be pessimistic. Anything’s better than nothing.”

Eli gave her an exaggerated wince, which was how Nozomi knew her attempt to lighten Eli’s mood had worked. “Well,” sighed Eli, “it won’t hurt, I suppose. I’ll stay with Alisa. Your torch will guide you home if she’s awake before you’re done. I’m sorry, but we can’t wait.”

“Alright,” said Nozomi, and dropped a kiss on Eli’s forehead before she went. She already couldn’t bring herself to say goodbye.

The call led her feet meandering further down the dark path. Her torch threw strange shadows. Here, out of the corner of her eye, Nozomi thought she saw the silhouette of Eli’s proud profile; there, a smudge shaped like a lightning bolt.

She bumped into them before she saw them.

Each one was more withered than the oldest oak tree Nozomi had seen. Their gnarled fingers tapped unceasingly on their instruments: a set of scales, an endlessly long writing scroll, a measuring rod. At Nozomi’s appearance, they stilled for a second, then went on with their frantic movements.

“Excuse me,” said Nozomi as politely as she could.

“She’s here.” “Here! Here!” They spoke over each other without a care, digging elbows into ribs and jostling each other. Three pairs of eerily pale eyes rolled at Nozomi.

Nozomi tried for a smile. Be kind, be kind, do not anger the ancient ones. “Do you have something to tell me?”

“I wonder,” said one.

“I wonder,” said another.

And the last: “Do you know what I wonder?”

Ah. Now Nozomi saw why Eli disliked them. “No,” she told them.

“I wonder,” they said in unison, “if she knows who she is.”

“…who do you think I am?”

Three grins, wider than what any face should be capable of. “Life is becoming,” said one conspiratorially.

“Death is became,” said another. She jabbed her measuring rod at Nozomi; Nozomi fought back the urge to flinch.

“Fate ends here.”

“Look back, and everything is clear.”

They leaned in. Magic tasteless as water loomed around Nozomi like as they chorused, “Except you.”

“Persephone falls- ”

“Katabasis.”

“- Persephone rises.”

“Anabasis!”

Nozomi’s mouth was dry. “Are you telling me I have to- ”

Like angry cats, all three shushed her with hisses. “We  _tell_  you nothing!” they snapped through gnashing teeth.

Nozomi took a step back and held her hands up placatingly. The Fates eyed her, as suspicious and alarmed as if they thought Nozomi were about to break out into defiant song.

Finally, they spoke again. “On your terms. Whoever you are. Details, details.”

“One is never the same after death.”

“Now death will never be the same after you.”

Nozomi waited a moment more, but the trio seemed to have completely lost interest in her. She cleared her throat. No response.

She didn’t dare ask for explanation. “I’m leaving,” Nozomi informed them instead. “Thank you.”

“Go, go,” they muttered distractedly. “She’ll leave. She’ll return. Places to do, things to be.”

As Nozomi backed away, she had no idea why she’d thought she’d heard her name. Part of her began to doubt whether the Fates had actually spoken to her. After all, they only mumbled the same phrase, over and over again: “I wonder. I wonder… Do you know what I wonder? I wonder, I wonder.”

* * *

Alisa’s cave was conspicuously empty. Nozomi broke into a half-trot on her way back to the entrance of the passage, where - thankfully - one of Eli’s doorways was waiting to take her to the palace.

Instead of the throne room she’d been expecting, Nozomi emerged into the familiar sight of Eli’s favored bedroom. There was a lump on the bed. Upon closer inspection, it turned out to be Alisa - fast asleep once again.

Nozomi plucked the roll of parchment off its precarious perch on Alisa’s cheek. Eli’s loopy script was scrawled across it.

_Please do not wake! (Unless the Moirai told you something that concerns her.) Thanatos is trying to gauge allies among the demigods in the mortal realm. Call me so I can take you to the treasury._

Alisa let out a soft snore. Nozomi muffled a giggle into her hand. She debated putting the parchment right back where she found it, but decided against it in the end. Instead, she tucked the blankets a little tighter around Alisa’s chin before she whispered, “Hades.”

A moment. Then the air set alight with thin lines of blue fire, sketching the doorway, and Nozomi stepped through.

It was suddenly very bright. Nozomi winced and shielded her eyes against the unnatural glare; it took a moment for them to adjust, but once they did, Nozomi peered around her with wonder.

Chest-high piles of golden coins. Swords, axes, spears, gilded bows. Bracelets of ruby and sapphire that winked strangely, glyphs carved into the jewels. And crouched on the floor, one very annoyed god of the Underworld tugging at the package Kotori had delivered.

“Um,” said Nozomi.

Eli grunted. “Give - me - a second - ugh!” She lost her grip and toppled backwards. The package dropped to the floor with a hollow thud.

Nozomi dropped to her haunches beside Eli, who sat up with many grimaces. “That looked like it hurt,” said Nozomi sympathetically, eying the pieces of precious metals scattered on the floor.

“Tell me about it.” Eli rubbed her behind and shot a glare at the package.

“I can kiss it better?” Nozomi offered. Eli’s face went red.

“Nozomi!”

“Right, right, business first.” Nozomi picked the package up. It was the size of a vase and wrapped in pink cloth. The loops of its red ribbon bow were as big as Nozomi’s head, and gleefully refused to be undone. “Any idea who sent this?”

“I have some guesses, but there’s no note attached.” Eli sighed and stood as Nozomi began to fiddle with the knot. “With some luck, it’ll be a magic artifact, or a weapon or some sort - anything to turn the tide if we do go to war. I brought it here while I was sorting through the rest of my treasury.”

Nozomi blinked at the piles of riches scattered around. She said, “I didn’t realise you needed material wealth. Where does it all come from?”

“I don’t need it, it just comes with the dead.” Eli rooted through another pile, inspected a sword briefly, then tossed it aside. “The things buried with heroes - lifelong favourite weapons, magical gifts from other gods. I get a copy of them if they had enough life or magic.”

“And you got distracted by opening the package?” Nozomi said mildly.

Eli, adorably, blushed. “You know how it is when you’re cleaning up.”

Nozomi thought back to the trinkets and plants she kept in her rooms back on the surface, and had to admit yes, yes she did know.

“Find anything useful before you got distracted, then?”

Ah, that telltale brow-furrow of frustration. “No,” Eli sighed. “Most of it wouldn’t even leave a scratch on a god in full fighting form. If Alisa doesn’t come up with something…”

“Elichi,” Nozomi soothed, reaching up from her seat to take Eli’s hand. Eli looked down at her: now that she wasn’t moving, Nozomi could see the anxiety rising up again, the tense edge to Eli’s muscles.

“What if I - what if we’ve picked a fight impossible to win?”

Simply saying “we’ll be alright” wouldn’t work. It was too hollow, too untrue; neither of them could accept it. So Nozomi only said, “We haven’t exhausted our options yet. Come on, Elichi, let’s see if we can get this box open.”

Obvious as the subject change was, Eli went with it. She settled neatly on the ground beside Nozomi, watching her pick at the knot.

“It’s - really stuck.” Nozomi tried wedging the package between her knees and heaving on the ribbon. All she accomplished was nearly punching herself in the face when the ribbon slipped out of her grasp.

At least it teased a smile out of Eli. “Here,” Eli said, reaching out, “I’ll hold and you pull, maybe that’ll - ”

The moment both their hands were touching the package, it burst open with a crack.

A shower of flowers burst into the air. Both Nozomi and Eli yelped, stumbling backwards. The package, seeming not to care that both had let go of it, hung in the air and continued to spew forth rose petals.

With a gust of wind from nowhere, the petals swirled into the rough shape of a short humanoid figure. The scent of roses and seafoam flooded the air: Nozomi knew this one from the stories Hanayo told, sensed it around the mortal lovers that wandered the woods together sometimes. Aphrodite, goddess of love.

The figure tapped its throat. Fluffed its pigtails just so. Then, in a high, triumphant voice, it announced, “I told you so, Eli!”

“Oh, gods above,” said Eli, sounding like she’d rather be anywhere but here.

“Who,” said Nozomi. “What?”

Without acknowledging either of their responses, the figure - Aphrodite’s message - went on gleefully. “I  _told_  you that you’d find love! This was worth sitting through all your depressing mumbling about Underworld this and rules that. If I say you’re in my domain, then you’re damn well in my domain! And I didn’t mean just the lust side, either, so you can’t even use Kotori as an excuse anymore.”

“ _What_?” said Nozomi, looking at Eli, who was sitting on the floor with her head in her hands and who apparently had had a… dalliance with Kotori once upon a time.

“That was so long ago, Nico, please- ”

“I didn’t know it’d be Persephone of all people, but hey. Couldn’t think of a better fit myself.” The figure flashed a thumbs up, petals rippling. “Congratulations on not being single anymore, both of you! Oh, and on getting laid, of course. That seems to be going rather well.”

Eli made a long noise of distress into her hands.

“Nico?” Nozomi said. “Aphrodite? You’re friends?”

“Unfortunately,” came the muffled answer. The figure started speaking again; it seemed to be some sort of predetermined message.

“Really, I’d throw you a party if I could,” said Nico’s apparition. Its tone had sobered. “But looks to me like you’ll have bigger worries soon. Might not be much use, but I’ve got some advice for you two.”’

At this, Eli’s head shot up.

Quite plainly, the Nico-apparition said, “Trust each other. Your love’s the real deal - take it from its goddess - which means it’s more powerful, more important than you think. After all, this kind of thing doesn’t happen between gods much. I can’t say this has a happy ending for sure, but it’s possible.

"You two are strong enough to make it work. But just if you need a little incentive!” The Nico-apparition gave an exaggerated wink before the serious face settled again.

“Persephone, Hades. No matter what happens, even if you do part, you’ll see each other again. I can’t say how long you’d have to wait, or if you’d get to stay together, but that’s all I know. You’re due for at least one more meeting yet.”

Nozomi’s stomach swooped; in which direction, she couldn’t tell. With that, the apparition waved and chirped with alarming cheer, “I’ll see you another time, if all goes well. You need to see your friends more! Persephone, I’m counting on you to drag Eli out of her home every now and then. It can’t be healthy being cooped up down there. Bye-bye!”

“Bye,” said Nozomi reflexively, but she’d stopped paying attention at around the same time her insides started feeling too light for her body. “Elichi -”

She stopped. Eli was crying. “Nozomi,” she said, a hiccup on the last syllable. “ _Nozomi_.”

No matter what happened, they would meet again. Eli hadn’t even imagined that possibility: hadn’t even dared to hope against hope. The revelation hit her all the harder for it.

“My crybaby,” Nozomi said fondly, and held her arms out. When Eli went to her, pressing a long, teary kiss to Nozomi’s smiling mouth, Nozomi knew then.

If they would meet again, Nozomi could endure anything.

One kiss turned into two, then three, driving thoughts of the future out of Nozomi’s mind. What mattered was now: the slide of Eli’s fingers against Nozomi’s spine, the watery giggles that escaped between kisses.

“I love you,” Eli said with a sniff. She sounded almost as awed as Nozomi was to hear it. “Do you know, I  _love_  you.”

“I love you too,” said Nozomi somehow through her cheek-aching smile, and was rewarded with a little laugh-gasp, like Eli could barely believe her. She leaned in for another kiss. Eli said her name like a prayer, and again when Nozomi smoothed back golden hair. And then she said something that turned Nozomi’s world upside down.

“Marry me.”

The air hung still between them. Nozomi felt the ridiculous urge to laugh, or maybe start crying harder than Eli had; the twist in her chest could go either way, really. This was too much, too fast - what was happening? She needed to answer Eli. Say something. Anything. “Excuse me?”

Eli was the palest Nozomi had ever seen her, even after tears left her with a red nose and cheeks. She repeated, with only the tiniest of stutters, “M-marry me? I’m - I wasn’t going to ask, because I was afraid it would only hurt more, but - I’m sorry, it won’t solve anything and it might just hurt you more if we have to par- ”

“Don’t you dare apologise,” Nozomi said. Her voice was thick and cloggy. “Say - say it again.”

And Eli clasped Nozomi’s right hand in both of hers and sank to one knee with slow solemnity. She looked up, all earnestness and an undercurrent of adoration, threatening to drown Nozomi in her gaze. She said, “Will you share in my power, my troubles and my joys? Will you rule alongside me as my one and only queen? Persephone - Nozomi - will you marry me?”

“Yes,  _please_ ,” said Nozomi, and promptly burst into tears. 

* * *

Weddings, it turned out, required lots of preparation, even if you were a goddess and had a total of one guest. Even if that one guest was ecstatic enough for ten.

“I can’t–believe–you’re really going–to–to–” Alisa gave an almighty sniff, then gave up altogether and made a wailing noise into Eli’s tunic. She hadn’t let go of Eli for the past ten minutes.

In hindsight, it probably wasn’t a good idea to haul Alisa out of her dream-sleep and announce their impending nuptials immediately. It also wasn’t a good idea to do so while both Eli and Nozomi were still crying, seeing as Alisa was a sympathy crier. Between the three of them, the Underworld might have a new river soon.

“You’re invited to the wedding, and also to helping us set it up,” Eli said weakly, patting Alisa’s head. She didn’t seem like she’d quite managed to come to terms with her soon-to-change marital status yet.

Not that Nozomi had either.

Alisa made another long noise that was mostly vowels. “Your  _wedding_ ,” she bawled. “I’m organising your  _wedding_. We need a witness–I can do that–we need sacrifices for Aphrodite–”

“I think we still have pomegranates,” Nozomi offered, hovering by the two Underworld gods. Alisa turned a tremulous look on her.

“You’re not even married yet and you’re already providing for Eli, I knew you’d be perfect,” she declared through hiccups.

And Eli was coming with a dowry of an entire realm. Pomegranates were the least Nozomi could do, in her humble opinion.

Meanwhile, Alisa went on with her mile-long list of preparations, no longer pausing for breath she didn’t need. “We can do the bath here–but Nozomi’s already living–might have to do without the–Nozomi!”

“Yes!” said Nozomi, snapping to attention.

Alisa pointed at the door. “Out! One day to reflect and prepare, no seeing each other. I’ll collect you when everything’s ready.”

“Is this really necessary?” asked Eli plaintively.

“No, but you’re only going to be wedded once, and I intend to see it done as well as possible,” Alisa told her primly. “Go on, go on!”

* * *

Being told to reflect was the easiest way to drive all thoughts out of Nozomi’s mind. She lay sprawled in the garden, staring up at the sliver of blue sky visible.

“I’m marrying Eli,” she said to herself, and was embarrassed by how easily her cheeks heated. “I’m marrying Hades.”

What would Hanayo say? Hanayo, her friend and confidante - and Demeter, her mentor and precursor. Hanayo would approve, Nozomi was sure, but as Kotori had told it, Demeter was grief-stricken by Hades’ ‘kidnapping’. And Demeter had never told Persephone tales about Hades.

Something to ask Eli about, then, if the two knew each other.

A small daydream came over Nozomi: bringing Eli to the surface, hand in hand; introducing her wife– _her wife!_ –to Hanayo anew; showing Eli her stamping grounds…

When Nozomi sat up, she left behind a person-shaped sprawl of violets. She laughed at herself and began to pick them; she rather fancied seeing purple woven into Eli’s hair. Only if Alisa allowed the change, of course.

* * *

The day had gone by faster than Nozomi expected, lost in her reveries, and whatever calm she’d found fled her as Alisa hustled her into the baths. “When you’re ready, I’ll come fetch you,” Alisa had told her. Alisa should be prepared to wait a while, then.

Nozomi had washed and rinsed her hair three times, then scrubbed herself till her skin fairly squeaked, and she was contemplating whether she should cut her toenails as well as her fingernails when Alisa poked her head in.

“I know it’s a ceremonial bath to cleanse yourself and be a new person,” Alisa said, “but I only just managed to get Eli to come out of the tub after reassuring her seven times that you do love her, so it’s your turn.”

“Hm,” said Nozomi. “Do my toenails look long to you?”

“They look fine, now up you get.” Alisa held out a white shift and flapped it imperiously.

“You didn’t even look.” Maybe she should wash her hair again. It might have trailed on the clean stone ground when she got up for a new bar of soap.

“Persephone,” Alisa said, arching her eyebrows at Nozomi in a way that made the family resemblance clear as day.

Nozomi got out of the bath.

As Alisa helped Nozomi braid her hair, she scolded gently. “You both know how you feel about each other. She’s not going to run away. How did you declare war on Olympus without batting an eye?”

“I wasn’t thinking about trying to give Zeus all the love he deserves and realising that no one could give that much love,” said Nozomi.

“Let me change my question,” Alisa said. “How can you say something like that with a straight face and still be afraid of marrying her?”

Nozomi blew her breath out in one long stream. “Is this what the mortals call divine guidance?”

The braid was finished. Alisa moved round to Nozomi’s front, fussing with the strands of hair framing her face just so. “It’s what I call encouragement from a friend and sister,” she corrected.

The heat from the bath must be playing havoc with Nozomi’s complexion. She opened and closed her mouth, like a fish that wanted to escape back into the bath.

Instead, unyielding and inexorable, Alisa dressed her.

Over the plain white shift went bolt after bolt of violet fabric, delicate teardrop-like jewels, all the riches of the Underworld’s immense treasury brought forth for its new bride. New sandals with butter-soft leather, hairpins of hand-wrought glass and gold. Last, but placed with greatest care, was a veil so pure silver it could have been spun from moonlight, light as the last wisps of a dream.

“Thank you,” whispered Nozomi, studying herself in the mirror. Her reflection’s eyes caught Alisa’s, proud beyond words, and she could only hope Alisa understood. “Thank you.”

“Now you’re ready,” said Alisa with immense satisfaction. “Come and meet your wife, Persephone.”

* * *

Alisa led Nozomi by the hand, step by careful step. The cloth of her robes whispered against each other as they walked; Nozomi thought once of hushed spectators and proud onlookers– _Hanayo_ –before brushing it aside. Less and less room for introspection now, when the Underworld opened in front of her, vision growing wider and wider.

The great doors to the palace were flung open. Under their arch waited a brazier filled with blue flames, burning on nothing but air. And on the other side of the brazier stood Eli.

Within the drapes of the veil, Nozomi could see little more than hazy shapes and colours. Just enough to see Eli was dressed much the same way as she was. A wink of violet flashed in her blonde hair when her head turned, and Nozomi offered up silent thanks to Alisa. She ached to pull the veil off (they had so little time, she just wanted to see her face) but, as if anticipating her anxiousness, Alisa moved to the brazier.

“Aphrodite,” she said without ceremony, as if calling an old friend, “we ask for your attention. In return, receive this gift from two in your domain.”

A bowl of pomegranates sat at the base of the brazier: perfect red, skins unblemished and gleaming like rubies. The last of the harvest from the tree in Eli’s glass garden.

In one smooth motion, Alisa lifted the bowl and tipped them into the fire. Nozomi squinted against the flare of light. One moment they rolled at the base of the flames; the next, they were gone, vanishing like tricks of the light.

The sweet scent of roses; the sound of the ocean roaring in Nozomi’s ears; the queer yet comforting sensation of an amused smile curling against her skin.

“Your veil, Persephone,” said Alisa, hand held out. Still dazed from the brush of god-magic, Nozomi obeyed without thinking–and suddenly found herself bared and defenseless under the gaze of two blue eyes.

Nozomi heard the soft  _thwump_  as the priceless fabric went up in flames. As if from far away, she heard Alisa say, “With the gods as witnesses, I see and acknowledge you wedded.”

But what did that matter when Eli was looking at her like that?

A small, tremulous smile hovered on Eli’s face; Nozomi understood too well that feeling of disbelieving elation. In that moment, she knew: she would give anything to bring that look back to Eli’s face again.

Eli,  _her_  Eli, came forwards. Nozomi clutched her outstretched arms like a lifeline and kissed her; there, the feeling of Eli’s lips smiling and smiling against hers, Eli’s hands framing her face, Eli’s hair falling around their faces. She needed nothing else.

With the proud, bashful look that sent Nozomi tumbling into memories of an unfinished wardrobe and an awkward god, Eli said, “Will you come see what I give to you?”

“I go where you go,” said Nozomi, breathless. Together, they stepped over the threshold into the palace.

It took a moment for Nozomi’s eyes to adjust. Phantom lights still danced at the edges of her vision where they had been seared by the brazier’s light and by Eli’s.

In the long, dark stretch of Hades’ throne room, colour bloomed.

Next to the black throne that had stood alone time immemorial, the dais had cracked; from rich brown dirt grew a second throne, lush green vines and soft bark twining into a seat and arms, arching up into a rounded trellis of a back. And on every edge, the crowning glory - narcissi and pomegranate flowers, full-bodied and bright, their simple beauty forever caught in the moment of rioting into life. They crept onto Hades’ throne, too, dashes of life on cold black stone.

Eli shifted beside her, not quite scuffling her feet. “Alisa said the mortals brought each other into their houses, but you already belong in my home, so I… I thought, it was time to make a place, just for you.”

“Eli,” Nozomi breathed. Her eyes stung with an ache that gripped her very heart.

“I didn’t actually know I could make it,” Eli said. She held Nozomi’s hand just a little too tightly. “I think the palace’s been stealing a little magic from you - I just gave it a little nudge, and I hope it turned out well, so - “

“It’s for me?” Her tongue was thick in her mouth, and in the whirl of emotions, words were slow to come, but Nozomi had to say it.

Eli’s voice cracked a little, and she wasn’t talking about the throne when she agreed, “It’s yours. If you want it. It’s ours, if you’ll have it.“

As if she wouldn’t. Nozomi hiccuped a small laugh. She stepped forward, and Eli kept pace, until they stood on the dais and Nozomi could trace the flowers with a trembling finger.

“It’s us,” Nozomi said, looking at the intertwined flowers. “Together. Elichi, how indecent,” she said, and then the tears wouldn’t be held back anymore and Eli muffled a watery giggle into Nozomi’s hair when she buried her head under Eli’s chin and clutched at Eli’s back for some kind of reality.

Eli pressed kisses into the plaits of Nozomi’s hair until Nozomi gained her composure. Drying her eyes on her sleeve, Nozomi murmured, “Will you sit with me?”

Standing tall by the new throne, Eli inclined her head. “After you, my queen.”

Nozomi sat. Her hands traced the arms of the throne, marveling at the detailing. Eli’s robes swished against the stone floor as she settled into her own throne, the armrests close enough for their hands to brush.

It was more comfortable than any throne had any right to be. Unbidden, a long sigh drew out of Nozomi. She looked up and across the long hall that had long been Hades’ sole dominion, out the open doors, over the vast stretch of the Underworld.

Farther, and farther still, reaching to the dark corners and the impenetrable ceilings, the throne cold under her fingers, or was it her fingers that were hot as a forge, because Persephone sat on her throne and felt the deepest magic moving through her and remaking her and perfecting her, the Underworld opening itself to her consciousness, coming into focus as reality never had before, not only that, not only the land but more–

Hades’ voice in the background, calling her name, but she had all the time in the world to answer now because she had the right to–to–

“-zomi? Nozomi?”

“I’m fine,” Nozomi said. Fine? That sounded hollow. She was better than fine. She was whole, perfect, perfected. “I’m fine, don’t worry.”

This, she couldn’t explain in words. But Eli looked at her queerly, and seemed to recognise some look in the set of Nozomi’s face - something, maybe, that Eli had felt herself when she first took hold of the Key.

Because when Hades descended, she was alone and afraid, and the dark pressed so hard she didn’t think she could press back, until she dug deep and clutched the Key and proclaimed who she was, she was the Queen of the Underworld and as Hades spoke so it shall be and as Persephone speaks so it  _would_  be-

Hades reared back like a spooked stallion. “What,” she whispered. “Persephone? Are you…?”

“Hades,” said Persephone, feeling their heartbeats in the very depths of the earth. “You asked me to share in your power, your troubles, your joys.”

“And to rule alongside me as my one and only queen,” Hades breathed. Her eyes were round with awe.

That was only to be expected. It wasn’t every day that a god bound themselves to a new domain.

The Underworld was laid bare to Nozomi now: its past, its present, glimpses of its future; all the citizens, cruel and kind, the strong wills like specks of light in the darkness; and Hades, tangled inextricably with it. As Persephone was now, too.

This time, Nozomi felt the stretch of space when Thanatos rushed to their side. “What have you done?” Alisa asked, more than a little fear in her voice.

That was alright. It had been so long since the Underworld had seen change; it would take all of them time to get used to.

Time they now had, since… “I suppose Zeus can’t take me away now,” said Nozomi with a grin.

“No more than he could take me away,” Eli agreed. They beamed at each other like happy fools until Alisa started to smile too, understanding what had happened at last.

They weren’t sure who started laughing first. But once they started, there was no stopping, not after the great threat was lifted: three giddy gods of the Underworld were right where they belonged.

* * *

This time, when Nozomi strode through the Fields of Asphodel, she did so with purpose. A queen had no need to explore her own lands. She followed the tiny spark of will with single-minded determination, and the shades parted for her.

Nozomi found the teenage girl crouched by herself besides one of Eli’s huts. The shadow of the wall fell across her, cutting her wavering shade torso into grey and darker grey.

Nozomi crouched to the shade’s level and waited.

Time passed. Slow as dripping tar, the girl lifted her face up to look at Nozomi.

“Would you like to try living again?” Nozomi asked gently.

The shade’s face didn’t change. She watched Nozomi in silence. But Nozomi was queen now, and she knew better how to look and how to judge, and she knew she’d judged correctly here.

So when Nozomi stood, brushed off her knees, and set off for the next shade, the girl followed.

They trailed behind her like the longest shadow - old women, young men, children and warriors and bards and bakers. Some didn’t come with Nozomi when she asked; others wavered, and broke off the end of the line.

Still, when Nozomi led them to the banks of the River Lethe, there were enough that they stretched out of sight into the mist.

“Drink,” Nozomi told them. “It won’t hurt - you’ll only forget, I promise. I am the god of rebirth, and I will bring you your second chance. And a third, and a fourth. As many new starts as you want.”

They bent like blades of wheat in the wind, dipping ethereal hands into dark water, lifting mere drops to their mouths. But they drank, and sighed, and the sighs turned into a thousand rushing whispers that clustered around Nozomi until she stood alone on the shore. She lifted a hand and felt the dandelion-seed brush of souls.

“Not long now,” she said to the air around her. “Not long now.”

* * *

All three of Cerberus’s heads shot up and pointed straight across the River Styx. Nozomi chuckled and tapped his flank to get one head’s attention. “My pats aren’t good enough, hm?”

The head whined, and a second head came around to help reassure Nozomi that her pats were very much appreciated, it’s just, there’s something coming!

“We know. Don’t worry, boy,” Eli said fondly, scratching his barrel of a chest. With a grumbly noise - he was just checking - Cerberus settled back down, though all ears still pricked towards Hermes’ approach.

“I’ll see you soon, alright? Be a good boy while I’m gone.” Nozomi dropped a kiss on each puppy nose before she stood.

Eli moved to sketch the portal that would take them to meet Hermes, but Nozomi stopped her. “Allow me,” she said, flexing her fingers. With an indulgent smile, Eli gestured for her to go ahead.

Nozomi touched the ground with the tip of one finger. From it sprang a slender birch sapling, roots rippling across the stone to form a threshold, arching up into a second sapling that formed an archway through which they could see Hermes gaping.

If Nozomi had to liken it to a physical sensation, it would be like stretching long-unused muscles, or ones she’d never known she had. She delighted in every chance to exercise her newfound powers. And, well, the Underworld could always do with more greenery in her opinion.

“Excellent portal, Your Majesty,” Eli said with a deep bow, grinning.

“Why, thank you, Your Majesty,” Nozomi returned. “After you.”

“Oh, no, no, after you.”

“I insist.”

“Well,” conceded Eli with magnanimity, “together?”

“Compromise is the basis of a good relationship,” Nozomi agreed, and linked arms with Eli as they stately proceeded through the portal.

They were barely through when Kotori launched herself at Eli with a delighted cry. Still linked, Nozomi stumbled round with them, and somehow Kotori’s arm found its way around Nozomi’s neck too.

“You did it!” Kotori crowed, hugging them tightly enough to lift herself off the ground. “You actually did it! I didn’t think - oh!” She clapped her hand to her mouth.

Nozomi laughed. “Neither did we, don’t worry, H- Kotori.”

The smile Kotori gave Nozomi could have lit the whole palace. “I’m so glad everything worked out for you two,” she said.

Suddenly overcome with a rush of affection, Nozomi hugged Kotori back tightly. “I wish you could have been at our wedding,” she said on impulse.

“I wish I could have too!” Kotori’s eyes practically gleamed. “You’ll need to tell me all about it some time. Especially what you wore, I almost never see Eli out of her formal clothes.”

“Oh, you must have on a few occasions,” Nozomi said wickedly. Eli spluttered. Kotori’s jaw dropped before she mirrored Nozomi’s grin.

“Are you really going to conspire against me in my own home?” said Eli plaintively.

“It’s my home too,” countered Nozomi. Eli’s moue of mock defeat thrilled her in its agreement: yes, Nozomi belonged here.

“Oh,” said Kotori. She cleared her throat uncomfortably. “A-about that. Persephone.”

Nozomi patted Kotori’s shoulder. “It’s okay, I know I have to go back.”

“You do?” Kotori looked up.

“I still belong to the overworld,” Nozomi said. “But I belong here too. My domain is rebirth, and I must oversee both sides of the coin.” She let a sad smile cross her face. “And Hanayo needs my help, doesn’t she?”

“It’s… a bit of a mess right now,” Kotori agreed. “Demeter doesn’t have control over winter. We need you to put things right again.”

Nozomi nodded. “Yes,” she said quietly. “Now, and next year, and every year after that. Life and death have been separated for too long.” With a deep breath, Persephone straightened and said, “Tell Zeus this: every six months, the world will see winter, and I will return to the Underworld. Every six months, the world will see spring, too, and I will bring the dead up with me for their next chance. Will this be a problem?”

“Not even Zeus can tell a god how to run their domain,” Hermes said. Her voice was solemn, but her snakes were looping slowly over each other, reflecting their master’s contentment.

Nozomi considered this. “He’s mad, isn’t he?”

“Absolutely enraged,” Kotori confided with deep delight. “Most everyone is secretly relieved. No one wants to see another war of the gods.”

“I’m coming too,” said Eli with a devious smile. Her arm tightened around Nozomi’s. “I have a right to send off my wife, don’t I?”

“You’ll hear no objections from me,” said Kotori, thrilled with every new development. Nozomi could practically hear the gossip flying around Olympus already. “I’ll deliver the news and let you have some time alone in the overworld, yes?”

“Wait,” said Nozomi, and Kotori stopped with one foot poised, wings on her sandals flapping. “Will you tell Nico thank you from us?”

“I most certainly can,” answered Kotori, giving them one last smile. She lifted a hand in farewell - and was gone.

Hand in hand with Eli, at long last, Nozomi began the ascent to the overworld.

* * *

Cold.

Nozomi breathed in and felt the air sear through her lungs. She stared around her, seeing the Underworld in the cold burn like Eli’s flames, in the silence that blanketed the white world.

She’d forgotten how bright it was.

“It’s beautiful,” breathed Eli, taking in the sight. She reached out and tapped an icicle hanging from the mouth of the cave they found themselves emerging from.

“It is,” agreed Nozomi. In the Underworld, ice was dark and cold; but against the pale sky, the icicle was the perfect shade of blue as Eli’s eyes.

Wordless, they walked through the world, snow crunching under their feet. Eli went in sandals; Nozomi’s bare feet delighted in the yielding ground.

Even in the supposedly dead world, there was still life. The further into the woods and away from the Underworld entrance they walked, the more sounds began to come back. Evergreen trees that stood bent but unbroken under boughs of snow; little black-and-white birds that pried their meals out of pine cones; squirrels that chattered and dove for cover when grey hawks swept over them.

Eli drank in the sights like parched ground soaking up rain. Nozomi’s heart ached for her. She said lightly, “Let’s make winter dates one of the conditions Zeus has to accept.”

“Let’s,” Eli murmured absentmindedly, eyes tracking a rabbit bounding across the snow.

Nozomi took a deep breath, feeling for the flow of magic. Time to show Eli her home.

“Wake up,” she whispered.

With Eli watching eagerly for changes, Nozomi knelt, scooping away snow to put her hands on frozen dirt. “Wake up,” she repeated, and  _pushed_.

“That’s all?” Eli said, trying not to sound disappointed as Nozomi stood without any noticeable change. Nozomi chuckled and kissed her impatient wife.

“Give it some time,” she said peaceably. “Let’s go find Hanayo. Keep your eyes open, Elichi.”

They walked: over plains, through forests, passing unseen through farmers’ fields. Wherever they went, the cold of winter melted in their trail, baring tiny green shoots of grass. It was the same magic as Nozomi had always used, but being applied to its true purpose, it worked with a flourish.

Fresh offshoots sprouted where Nozomi’s hand brushed against old, friendly tree trunks. The insects of the earth poked through the footprints she left, feeling out this new world. Persephone moved through the world, with the world, and it responded.

Eli gasped. “Nozomi!” she said urgently, tugging on their joined hands.

With a rumble of snow, a brown snout poked through a low overhang. The bear shouldered its way out of its den, blinking blearily; it eyed the gods with dull animal intelligence.

“Ah,” said Nozomi, spreading her hands non-threateningly. “Good morning! Was it a good sleep?”

With a mighty shake, the bear sloughed off the last of its winter drowsiness and lumbered off, seemingly no worse for wear. Eli watched it go, entranced.

“Maybe next time I can convince it to stay and let you pet it,” Nozomi teased. “Or maybe not. I might be replaced by the bear in your affections.”

In dignified response, Eli scooped up some rapidly-melting snow and flung it at Nozomi. With equal dignity, Nozomi scuffed the ground; snow went flying in Eli’s direction when a bush burst out of the ground.

“You forget, Elichi, you are in my domain now,” Nozomi said with a sinister cackle.

“Come,” Eli challenged, fistfuls of snow at the ready. “You’ll find me a stronger opponent than you think, Nozomi!”

By the time they stopped, Nozomi felt like a newborn goddess again, pink with exertion and deliciously worn out. Eli looked much the same, sprawled out next to her, hair the most awry Nozomi had ever seen it.

With a groan, Nozomi rolled over and started combing it back into decency. “I suppose we can call that a draw,” she said with great grace.

“If that will satisfy your pride,” Eli retorted. She tilted back into Nozomi’s touch like a great cat.

Which was quite the position for Hanayo to find them in.

“ _Nozomi!_ ”

Nozomi bolted upright. There was Hanayo, coming towards them at a speed greater than any Nozomi had seen yet.

“Oh no,” said Eli, sounding very scared. “Demeter, I- “

And then Hanayo was there, and she was hugging Nozomi so hard that Nozomi swore she heard her ribs creak, and she was crying. Where her tears landed, the newborn grass suddenly shot up as fast as teenage mortals.

“Nozomi!” Hanayo sobbed. “I was - s-so worried…you were just g- _gone_  and I, I tried to, but Zeus said -”

“Hey, hey,” Nozomi said soothingly, ignoring the prickling in her own eyes. “It’s alright, I’m alright. Elichi took care of me, see?”

“Elichi?” repeated Hanayo.

Eli laughed nervously. “It’s… been a while, hasn’t it, Demeter?”

Hanayo’s face screwed up. Eli flinched. Then Hanayo let out another sob and dove at Eli.

“D-d-don’t Demeter me!” she wailed into Eli’s shoulder.

Nozomi could have pinpointed the moment when Eli slumped in relief. “Hanayo,” Eli murmured, hugging back at last. “It’s been a while.”

With a great sniff, Hanayo mustered a little composure and said, “Too long, Eli. I heard the truth from Kotori, just a little while ago… I-I’m sorry. I doubted you. I shouldn’t have…”

Eli’s eyes softened. “You were worried for Nozomi,” she said. “I understand. I probably would have done the same myself if I were you.”

Teary though it was, Hanayo’s shy smile was what finally convinced Nozomi it would be alright. “Well, that’s all in the past,” she said cheerfully, squeezing Hanayo’s hand. “We can have a good long talk at last; Kotori probably didn’t have much time to explain, did she? And there’s things I want to tell you all about too.”

“Of course! Will you stay, Eli?” Hanayo said hopefully.

Ah. This was the part Nozomi had been avoiding thinking about.

“I can’t,” Eli said; it was clear from both her tone and the way her gaze still darted around the world that she would have stayed as long as she could if given a chance. “The longer I’m here, the more chance Zeus will have to accuse me of treason or something equally ridiculous.”

“Oh,” Hanayo mumbled, disappointed. She glanced longingly at Eli, but said to Nozomi, “This is your last chance to talk for a while, right? I’ll leave you two be.”

Before either could protest, she slipped away, melting into the foliage like a shadow. Nozomi felt a twinge of guilt - surely Hanayo and Eli had so much to catch up on too - but she was thankful all the same.

Blessed Eli, as if reading her thoughts, said softly, “It’s alright. We’ll have more chances to talk; I’m sure Kotori can run a few messages.”

“Mmh…I think I’m just a selfish person, Elichi.”

“That’s fine and I love you all the same,” Eli insisted. She emphasised her point with a kiss. “I think after all that’s happened, we deserve a little selfishness.”

Despite the lump in her throat, Nozomi smiled. Her sweet Eli. “I’ll always come back to you,” she promised.

“And I’ll always wait for you.” They stood nose to nose a little while longer, enjoying each other’s warmth in the thawing spring. At the last, it was dutiful Eli who pulled away.

“Till winter,” she said, smiling sadly.

Nozomi only nodded, throat tight. She wouldn’t say goodbye. Not as long as she knew they would meet again.

Still, as the ground rumbled and cracked, as Eli began to sink into the earth, Nozomi called out: “Elichi!”

Eli turned back. Her mouth opened in a perfect ‘o’, and Nozomi knew they both saw the same thing: the thousands of souls, tiny sparks of life, drifting away from Persephone to be carried into new lives. One last memory of light for Hades to carry into the Underworld.

* * *

“So,” Hanayo said, handing Nozomi a half of a pomegranate. “Eat up, eat up, you must be hungry after so long in the Underworld! Will you tell me everything?”

The small seeds glittered up at Nozomi. She inhaled its scent deeply, and thought over all that had come to pass.

“Well, it started when I fell…”

* * *

 “Now the wind scatters the old leaves across the earth, now the living timber bursts with the new buds and spring comes round again.” - Homer, _The Iliad_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this was a really long ride. it got pretty tough at the end, but from here, this is honestly one of my proudest accomplishments. thanks to all who've been following Katabasis, both on tumblr and on ao3! come yell in the comments section at me whenever and wherever validation is about 46% of my reason for existing


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